To prepare for starfield and make it more immersive I've decided that from now on in my daily life when I walk in to another room or building i will stop and close my eyes for 5 seconds
@@NotSoFast71 yes, or do it smart like elite dangerous or star citizen. Allow faster than light travel. But give players control. Not spend 95% of time playing a space game without space. Not to mention, you spend all this time building an incredible spaceship piece by piece... and you don't get to fly it.
@@NotSoFast71 You really dont get it do you? it doesnt have to be exactly like real life lool... the criticism here is that the space travel is fake in this game because its just loading screens, its not seamless like in star citizen or NMS,you cannot fly your spaceship directly into the planets orbit and land down etc... thats what was necessary and sadly the creation engine cant do that shit so its just endless loading screens.
There is also still a lot of gender stereotypes and a lack of inclusivity. This is the future and not some neanderthal conservative social program. In fact, when it comes to white people... less is more. These companies need to be more sensitive to minority rights. That's the biggest issue with this game. The rest can be fixed.
It's a risky decision though. All a competitor needs to do is have an upgraded copycat that takes a lot of identity from Bethesda style games. Once a strong IP with some decent funding comes in, Bethesda will have to step up their game.
@@thomaslevy7249 That one is also quite simple but hits the mark on a few core systems that makes it entertaining enough and the combat is fun. Starfield is just tedious. All its systems are either fine enough or flat out bad. Haven't seen anything to make me say, yes i like this so much that other games should emulate it. But plenty of which made me say that or the other game did it better. And this one thing is boring or annoying.
@@Dahellraiderwell, people do fall for the hype like 95% of the time. There's plenty of people who play games like they don't have a job, yet skim over anything that would taint their experience of the game because they just want it to fit their expectations.
A friend lent me an Xbox so I could try this game and see for myself how it feels. And now I can firmly say that you absolutely hit the nail on the head with your review, Mac. Starfield is a rushed, soulless shell of what could have been a great game. On the plus side, it reminded me of how good No Man's Sky is, so I'll probably jump back in just to fly around in space a little, like in an actual space game.
I think Bethesda did it on purpose.. They took the time to fill in all those little details, but left the rest of the game a shell so it would be easiest for the modder's to do their thing. This has the potential to be a good game, in about 4-5 years or so.
I don't think it was rushed, given it was 9 years in development. I think there was a failure in leadership and direction. It's like they took the safest route possible, afraid to be innovative or imaginative. Also, one of the big issues was mentioned in the vid - 1000 planets with cut and paste assets (or barren). That, and the load screen ship piloting (which NMS did SO much better), removed even the exploration aspect that was one of the key charms of other Bethesda games. As he said in the vid, they would have been far better off making a dozen richly detailed planets with tons of unique places to explore and interact with.
@@TheDude1980 Yeah I was immediately disappointed the moment I realised I didn’t actually need to manage my ship’s fuel. in NMS you had to keep an eye on your resources to make sure you had enough fuel to get around otherwise you would be in big trouble and stuck somewhere. In Starfield there’s nothing like this. Ship building is a fucking awesome feature but what’s the point ? The ship combat is boring and you don’t even need to fly in your ship to get anywhere.
Revolutionary new IP with all its core perks and obvious gameplay approach as well character movement range copy paste from Fallout 4 while seemingly missing the parts that made that work. Really disappointing... If TES6 follows same recipe they can just cancel it now.
@@somnorila9913 I'm worried for TES 6 now. I don't get hyped for anything and I never preorder games anymore. It seems we have just one flop after another.
All true but it's also a very fun game to play. Like many I came in with low expectations because Bethesda's recent track record is garbage. Ignore the criticisms and try it for yourself, the $1 for 14 day Gamepass subscription is still going FYI
What I don't understand though is why are all of these loading screens not just hidden? When you get in the lift, why don't the doors just close, it loads the area, and the doors reopen? Who the hell thought "nah, let's just have a black screen instead"!?
@@paniky6006 But that would still be fine right? Like all it needs to do is take a screenshot, freeze your screen on that screenshot for 2 seconds to unload and reload the player, then it can keep going. So long as the movement before the screen freeze and immediately after both blend into the same frozen image it wouldn't break the immersion.
I'm guessing, because the engine keeps track of thousands of objects that litter Bethesda games, if it wasn't segmented it would probably take 20 minutes to load at the start, run out of RAM and stutter into a slide show - like STALKER did if you left too many guns lying around.
Starfield is just the natural progression of Todd Howard's design philosophy - which is to churn out games that are increasingly dumbed down in order to appeal to as wide an audience as possible (in order to cover the ever-inflating production budgets). My first grumblings of dissatisfaction with Todd came with Fallout 3 - I had fun with it, but my final impression was "It's just Oblivion with guns" (this was actually a common complaint at the time). I was hyped for Fallout 3, and ultimately walked away disappointed. My moment of clarity, funnily enough, came with Skyrim. The leveling system in Skyrim is (to put it bluntly) utter shite, and It didn't take long for me to notice that most of the dungeons in Skyrim were either corridors with a treasure chest at the end, or corridors that looped around back to the entrance. I thought, "I can't be the only who noticed this, right?" And sure enough, there were forum and reddit threads that discussed this very topic (some of them still exist, if you're willing to do a little digging). It was when I saw somebody actually PRAISING this terrible design that it finally clicked - I'm not Todd Howard's target audience, that mouth breathing buffoon is Todd's target audience. And sure enough, when the hype train for Fallout 4 kicked into overdrive, I saw the same telltale signs of Fallout getting the "Skyrim treatment" (that, and I just assumed everything coming out of Todd's mouth was BS), so I simply avoided it - the same way that I'm avoiding Starfield, and the same way that I'm going to avoid Elder Scrolls VI. I'm convinced now that Todd Howard genuinely thinks that you can improve RPGs by removing as much actual role playing as humanly possible. And the massive commercial success he's enjoyed has only incentivized him to continue with this approach. I can't wait for the Fallout 5 interactive movie to drop in 2030 (/s).
I think they have added to the RPG and character progression in Starfield compared to Fallout 4. I feel the roleplaying elements are superior in Starfield. In Starfield, at the start when visiting the planet (moon?) Kreet, you meet a Crimson Fleet chief (evil faction guy) who wants your ship. You can actually have a conversation with him and persuade him to ensure you keep your ship. The persuassion system is interesting. This is just one example, where Starfield blows Fallout 4 out of water. You an actually talk to an NPC from an "evil" faction and have it your way. Compare that to Fallout 4, where you had to ONLY fight the Raiders. Also here you can join the Crimson Fleet - 'evil' faction and do quests for them. In Fallout 4, you cannot join the Raiders. That itself is a huge win for roleplaying. Another thing - Starfield got back skills and has a very interesting character progression system, many dialogues have skill checks. Fallout 4 booted out Skills which was a huge issue for character progression and roleplaying experience. Then you have traits which are a throwback to Fallout New Vegas. At the start itself in Starfield, I see that character progression and roleplaying is far superior here. Also the characters you meet at New Atlantis were interesting and some of their Misc quests were interesting and funny. For me the disappointing thing about Starfield is not having atmospheric flights in a small vessel. I had a great time playing my favorite space game 'Empyrion Galactic Survival' - exploring and taking in the scenery of those alien worlds, observing POIs (Point of Interests) from a high position, sometimes even firing on POI turrets using my ship's missiles. Sad we cannot do all of that here. If they would have included all of that Starfield would have been a ground breaking game. They should have pushed and got that included IMHO But as of now, it is an RPG set in space and should be treated as one. It is not a sandbox space simulator.
@@KamleshMallickso starfield beats one of the worst games Bethesda ever made in terms of being a rpg. Wow what a low bar you have. Now compare it to something like fallout New Vegas and see how short it falls of that
@@thedoomslayer5863 my response was to the OP who said every new Bethesda game is dumbed down further from the previous. I gave examples refuting his statement. You opted to shift goal posts. Either you counter the OP or my points with examples instead of making copy paste arguments from the Internet.
@@KamleshMallick Hes not wrong. Compare morrowind and oblivion then morrowind and skyrim. Compare Fallout 3 and Fallout 4. If you cant see the difference there and how watered down each was from the last then having any kind of discussion with you would be meaningless
Starfield helped me realize that I liked the older Bethesda games because I'm a fan of the Sims. I've long considered Oblivion/Fallout 3 /Skyrim some my favorite games but I don't think a single character they've made apart from Serana is actually memorable in any way. Just like the sims. Sims don't really have personalities, they just exist in the world and follow a basic routine that is enough for me to play make believe and create my own stories. That's missing from Starfield. It has all the issues that the older games have but none of the stupid charm I actually enjoyed.
Bethesda, despite never really being good (since Morrowind at least) at making proper RPGs with choices and consequences, used to always succeed at environmental story telling. By cramming this game full of planets to up the number so people feel like they're in a vast universe, they've hamstrung their greatest strength: their ability to give you that feeling of discovery when stumbling across a building or ruin and exploring it, finding out the story behind it.
I’m guessing your not counting fonv because they only published it and not developed it. But you should because it’s basically fo3 dlc. And it was full of choice and consequence and branching quest paths. Ceasers legion, ncr, brotherhood, even a neutral path. That’s what ppl wanted it starfield
@@heat9238 Yes, Obsidian gets the well-earned credit for Fallout New Vegas which succeeds where Fallout 3 failed in terms of meaningful choices, dialogue and factions. I wouldn't consider New Vegas a DLC for 3, while it borrows heavy on the assets and essential parts under the bonnet, the game is unique and original. Unfortunately, no longer something we can call Bethesda games.
@@djwoody1649 yeah it’s very unfortunate man. Feels like we’ve been waiting longer than a decade for Bethesda to return to form. But instead they seem to think we want quantity over quality. I fear elder scrolls 6 will be the final nail in the coffin.
I'm trying my best to like Starfield. But... On my first two planets visited for exploration (Luna & Mars) the game gave me two identical collapsed mines as unknown markers. Same dead bodies, same layout, same loot. My heart sank and I thought I'm going to struggle to stay into this game now.
There's more to the game than what your seeing don't but into these haters the layouts aren't bad perfectly fine actually turn off your brain and you'll see what the game offers
@@robovader7625 Oranges and apples in countless ways: legacy, money, genre, target audience, vision... on and on. But, you know that. You just wanted to be snarky.
I can't get over the fact that even now, they can't do natural overhangs or caves; seeing low detail smooth terrain give way to far more detailed static rock model geometry - one of a few repeatedly used across the planets - just cracks me up!
I remember in morrowind, not sure if still a problem, they couldn't do covered areas alot of the time because the rain was just an overlay so it would fall even indoors.
I remember playing Morrowind for the first time and being completely lost and in awe. It was magical. Oblivion: Great! Fallout 3: AMAZING! Skyrim: Great! I thought that Fallout 4 the engine was just not up to scratch then... But now, eight years later and they are still using this engine??? At this point I'm starting to wonder if the devs at Bethesda don't actually have any idea how to use anything else.
I knew this game was in trouble when Todd came out and said that they're still using the creation engine/gamebryo engine for Starfield and most likely ES6.
Fallout 4 downgraded some RPG elements, but it's still fun to play and has a lot of interesting locations and characters. Starfield feels almost all ai generated.
It's mind-blowing how a studio of this size starting from Oblivion since about 20 years cannot implement a transparent WINDOW! So that you enter a house and see stuff outside. Yeah, we had limitations all these years ago, but now, seriously? a loading screen? Mac, big shoutout for your honest review!
yeah, loved it about Witcher 3, you ran into a house, no loading screen and on top of that you could look outside by this lens like thick and round glass which showed you outside but distorted.
@mablesfatalfable6021 Not really. Metacritic has it at a 76 for PC and a 69 on the PS4. The game did have some bugs and issues at launch which probably attributed to this. I got this game day 1 and loved it. I had the ps4 version too.. Game does have a pretty good cult following though. There's nothing really like Kingdom Come out there..
@@mablesfatalfable6021 it was very much underated. It had some pefomance issues but so does many triple A games as we can see in starfield yet metacritic slammed the KcD for it and ignores it in triple A.
Why is kingdom come good? Because it’s made by openly far right game devs from Poland who wanted to make an authentic game on European medieval history. Entire gaming industry and media boycotted and tanked that game
Bless you Mac for being there for us, the gamers. I’m so thankful for you and your reviews. They are on and to the point with no holds barred. Keep up the incredible work!
"Us gamers" lmao. Judging by the comment section on this channel I really don't think you claim the "gamer" title. All I see in the comments are bitter, reactionary losers. The "what has happened to society, everything is sh*t" living in the past type of people. I was gutted when I saw the reviews for this game, and then ... I played it for myself and forged my own opinion. This is the game I've enjoyed the most this year. I haven't had this much fun in a game since Elden Ring and the BG3 early access. This game is a labor of love. All the criticisms are valid, but this definitely isn't a bad game. I landed on a barren moon and watched the the sun rise with Jupiter in the background. It transported be back to when I was ten years old, sneaking around at night under the aurora borealis of Skyrim with Jeremy Soule swelling in the background. Nothing else compares. Choose to immerse yourself and StarField delivers.
Imagine if you got Skyrim and you only fought bandits. No Giants or Falmer or Trolls or Undead. Just Bandits. And all travel was through fast travel through a clunky menu. That's what we got. The Bethesda that made Skyrim doesn't exist anymore it's dead.
yeah it really is clunky in a bad way, no way was this in development for 7 years it feels they started working on it 2-3 years ago, i'm not impressed.
Haven't bought or played myself but watching all these playthrough videos i cant help but feel the hud is shit. Not only does it make the screen look unnecessarily crowded, its also immersion breaking, having someone's name tag attached their character all the time, makes it feel like some shitty free to play mmo. I hope most of these hud elements can be turned off.
Bethesda has reached the limit of the creation engine. I believe that the designer team is perfectly capable of implementing everything you have mentioned in your video, but regrettably the decission to use the archaic in-house engine is made during very early stages and this decission ties both hands of the developers. I would also like to point out that the character models look rather 'Stiff' or 'Plasticky', especially the eyes. A smaller studio with much less budget has managed to pull out a lot of things much better (Larian - BG 3). In addition, the graphics Starfield has really does not justify such high system requirements. Optimization, anyone? Even the AI is horrible. Enemies cannot react sniping tactics from afar, most cases the target you are engaging even fails to realize that bullets are sucking the life out of him and does not bother taking an action. I also have a serious issue with that XP indicator popping at the center of the screen right under the crosshair, ruining my attention and breaking the immersion of combat. Starfield is designed to be an Xbox success, this is also a problem when the hardware capabilities of Xbox consoles are considered. A lot had to be cut from the game so it can ''Barely' be 30 fps on Xbox platforms. Such a shame. The game also has an identity crisis. Wants to be an RPG, fails to deliver. Wants to be space sim, epicly fails to deliver. Wants to be an FPS looter-shooter, fails to deliver. I believe that the steam score will be 'Mostly positive' to 'Mixed' and metacritic score will be around mid 70s.
The engine can just be improved instead of using a no one. They need to keep updating it. Personally I'd rather have a Skyrim dlc in the same engine at this point. I need that adventure back
No. They just cant use the engine properly. Check out "Open Cities" for Skyrim... why is that a mod and not how the game is? Because the devs are soggy pretzels.
@@SamahLama The engine could be rebuilt if BethesdaGS weren't too incompetent and lazy to make it good and optimized, this iteration of Creation Engine is so massively unoptimized it barely managed to make ends meet. Also doesn't help the fact that this was made with Xbox Series S in mind and that box of mediocrity is holding back Xbox/PC platforms as a whole.
the creation engine already reached its limit with Oblivion, players just largely overlooked how dated it was, no one questioned why they couldn't climb ladders or be on a moving platform
Lets remember they DELIBERATELY left out vehicles because the planets are so small. Other bethesda games had horses and fast power armor. This was to hide how small and fake their planets really are.
I love how the running joke for years was this was just going to be "Skyrim in space"...but we didn't even come close to getting something as good as "Skyrim in space". This sums up gaming for this past decade perfectly.
I wouldn't be too cynical. It's a pretty great year for games and Starfield doesn't even factor in to that conversation. Bethesda have been milking ancient tech for decades and winning people over with pure heartfelt soul. Now that soul has faded, there's not a lot left, especially in 2023. They've been left in the dust and are out of touch with the pace of what people expect from a great modern game. We've moved on from this creaking template.
Even if they needed loading screens from a technical standpoint, there’s no reason they couldn’t make them immersive. Mass Effect 1 from 2007 had airlocks, and elevators that allowed environments to load without ruining the connectedness and immersion felt in the world. They also gave opportunities to further develop lore.
Literally haven't seen a loading screen while playing Starfield. Shit is instant once you jump in from another system there is a whole new system directly after the cut screen. You take off or land you're in space or your ship instantly after the cut scene. Go through a door you're inside. The speed at which this game loads new areas is insane. My only assumption is that Mac doesn't meet the system requirements
@@ValosarX that, in my opinion, is even more distracting. Couldn't they implement a system, that preloads the interiors, when you are near the building or a simple pressure/decontamination chamber to hide fadeout loading screen? Wasn't this whole ssd-no-more-loading-screen a thing for current consoles? (And yes, starfield is a console game available on pc). Do you remember Dungeon Siege? A Game from 2003 with only one loading screen at the start. You can traverse from the deepest Dungeon to the highest Mountain without ever seeing a single loading screen besides the first initial one.
Honestly when will people learn? Stop preordering! Whether the game turns out to be good or not if we don’t pre order the producers will HAVE to step up their game. I was hoping for a more of a NMS type game with a mix of Skyrim. This feels like it’s trying to be too many things but not being good at any one thing as a result. It’s such a shame
I've come to realize that when someone or a big company has to keep reminding us, i.e. (the consumers) of their past achievements; this tends to be a red flag of whats to come. We were shown very little gameplay & a lot of cherry-picked cut scenes, even a live action trailer. It's kind of sad when developers stop pushing the envelope & are content in giving us the same recipes to the table.
The idea of a few, well crafted, planets would of been WAY BETTER! They could of even added secret planets that are either discovered by the player and can then make their own settlements or have "Random Events" where NPCs will find those planets, notify the other NPCs and the player, and then a settlement will slowly be built on that planet.
And they could spend further resources by custom crafting new planets and inserting them behind the scenes as time goes on - giving players reasons to continue to investigate. It would've been so much better to build up to an expansive galaxy, than to try and roll out all of that at once.
I thought for a game to be considered open-world by today's standards, there have to be no loading screens between regions? There was a long debate in the Zelda fanbase about how the older games are not open-world because there are loading screens between areas. Now Starfield comes out and you literally cannot get from one area to another without a loading screen, and people call it open-world?
I ended up refunding. The biggest problem with Starfield is that it's made by Bethesda, and Bethsoft doesn't refine, they expand. They took the underlying Fallout 4 mechanics, didn't improve or refine any of the mechanics that made it one of the worst received Fallout games, and just bolted some extra space themed tat to the package.
@@bravexheart7shooting is exactly the same as fo4 juat without vats, so its worse. Inv is just as bad, ui is terrible on pc, somehow has even MORE loading screens than fo4........yeah its bad, but keep huffing that copium son.
@@bravexheart7 Just compare the perks, what they say they do as most are the same. Compare how the character moves, or the combat options for melee. See how power armor with jetpack mod compares to the jetpack in Starfield. See how the perks synergize with your build approach. It's not just the same, is worse even...
@@mablesfatalfable6021 Equating sales with how well recieved a game is doesnt work because pre release hype drives the majority of sales. The game garnered a ton of positive buzz at release but the problems were a slow burn and took a while to get to, the community doesnt regard F4 as strong in reteospect. Also, lowest effort DLC in the series. To me its usually a sign that not enough players are sticking around to buy post release content.
like the game but a basic surface vehicle missing is beyond wild, imagining humans just first getting to space walking around endlessly in the elements 🤣
Right? We had surface vehicles on the moon in 1971. In this we're walking around to the same procedurally generated buildings and landscapes and anomalies over and over and over again in what year is it? 2,3xx?
Vehicles would end up exposing the limits of the procedurally generated tile the player is in much faster. It would also expose the identical design of types of points of interest faster. One design of the abandoned mine, to be copied and pasted, one of the cryo lab to get the same treatment, etc... Thats why I think they didnt add any type of vehicles, it would destroy the illusion of expansive exploration at an unacceptable rate. The fact that cities don't have maps, whether digital or paper was done for the same reason imo. Lore wise it makes zero sense. Humanity can chart solar systems but gave up making simple city maps of the type we've had historically since ancient Sumeria? Similar to the absence of vehicles, they may have thought if the player has a detailed map of the city they will not only see how small the cities are but also not explore them thoroughly. Also given the mechanic of gaining quests by overhearing random NPC conversations they really needed the player to wander around aimlessly. These choices compel the player to simply log more hours and are an attempt at supporting the facade of the games environments. Those are not necessarily bad goals but are bad ways to meet them.
I expect modders will create something, a vehicle bay for your starship containing a 3-4 person offroad vehicle with internal air, a weapon or two, and a shield. I suspect Bethesda haven't done it because they have never done one before, and they don't know how to effectively program the physics.
To be fair BG3 is not that wow. It's just that Original Sin games were good and BG3 is an improvement on those. While Fallout 4 was good enough with a hint of lost potential and Starfield is a big downgrade on that.
Agree with all the criticism. Ive only got 10 hours into it but all of the points brought up are valid. The map... or lack of is what really drives me crazy. I still think it will eventually be a decent game after some updates but it does not live up to the hype and expectations
I'll just stick to my indie devs, they still have passion and a pair to provide people with quality experiences. I've been playing Baldur's Gate 3 all day and i absolutely love it.
If you don't have Game pass, why don't you? Game is on game pass! Play it and make your on mind about game. Game has it flows but is it not as bad as he said. The bigest problem is creation engine and its limitations. Regardig bugs I had 3 bugs in 25 hours. I don't defend bethesda but it is not shit as he claims.
It boggles the mind how no one at Bethesda said this ain’t it chief. We need a more immersive space travel not load screens. I also knew rather quickly it was a dud. It actually made me rather play mass effect andromeda instead, and I don’t like that game. Some of these reviewers seriously piss me off. Clearly some were shilling hard.
As a gamer, I can not agree more with this analysis. Things that some people might thing are small details, are actually a VERY big deal when it comes to breaking immersion. That feeling of getting into my ship and taking off into space is great, and can make or break the immersion. Also, there is nothing worse than a loading screen to destroy immersion.
@@JeffReams Oh geez that just re-unlocked a core memory I had completely forgotten when remembering how much I enjoyed anthem. I forgot how fucking long the loading was lmao
Back in the 90s on the Amiga/ST scene there was a game called Damocles. You coukd get in any vehicle and take it for a drive, anywhere. That included finding all kinds of spacecraft that you could just get in and literally take off, head to the stars and fly to a different planet, land and get out again to star exploring. All that in one load from a floppy disk and a great player experience. Granted its not Starfield but youd think these days provuding that kind of good player experience should be standard by now
Gamers clicking "pre order" like blind pigeons are the only one real problem about video game's industry. AAA devs know how spoiled people are so they don't care anymore. Simple. Fortunately, some are still reliable, see Baldur's gate 3. Music, cinema? same as ever, depends on what type of public you are. If you go searching good music by yourself you'll find treasures everywhere, same as cinema. But if you just swallow the mainstream bullshit, then you'll listen and watch shit. As simple as that.
No Man's Sky is one of the most immersive games I've played and with over 300 hours put into the game I still find myself being pulled back into the vast universe.
I've logged over 100 hrs in both games so I've really enjoyed them for what they are. The visual style of NMS is simplified but I really appreciated the huge variety of distinctive, colorful biomes with tons of megafauna and megaflora diversity. Starfields biomes look more realistic but they are also repetitive and somewhat bland in their design most of the time. No planets that have adundant fields of bioluminescent fungi, no craggy mountainous volcanos, absolutely nothing underwater and a general lack of verticality in their biomes overall. One can say, "thats not realistic" but here on Earth we have the amazing Redwood forest, Sahara desert, frozen tundra of Iceland, swamps and bogs of Louisiana, the Amazon rainforest, beaches with pink sand or black sand, the rocky clefts of Ireland, the Great Barrier Reef and tons of other biomes with distinct flora and fauna. The diversity of Starfields biomes demonstrated in their entire galaxy doesn't come close to what is indeed real on our one planet. The whole challenge is to balance both Science (the realistic and reasonable) with Fiction (wild imagination and creativity). Starfield's environments lack the stunning variety of what is actually real yet tone down and dilute what could be imagined at the same time. In some way it really is the worst of both approaches when it comes to environmental exploration. Yet it has really fun looting, shooting, quests, random encounters, ship customization, which are all things NMS lacks. They are two halves that, if put together would've probably been one of the greatest space games of all time.
@@vincer7824 Thanks for that great insight. That is unfortunately true. It is neat seeing a new type of alien, but usually it follows the same AI as all the others. Most moons/dead planets are the same, which is fine cause that's realistic. Sometimes you do find a place that does feel really unique. But what bugs me is yea. The total lack of verticality. It would be cool to see more deep canyons or actual mountains. Things still feel remarkably flat a lot of the time though.
I knew way back when it was first known that BGS would still be using creation engine for Starfield (circa FO4 release) that this is what we would be getting.
Depends what you are looking to get from it i suppose. As of now it's not that bad. Sure expecting a NMS or Elite feel this is not that and will never be. But it is a type of Mass Effect Andromeda that's a bit more towards the NMS and Elite games. My gripe with it is about its core mechanics. Most perks are copy paste from Fallout 4 but the special sauce is missing. Where there you have VATS with specific perks and approaches and cool takedown/kill, those cut scene type animations tied to specific weapon types you are using. Starfield has none of that. The core combat loop and character builds from Andromeda, focusing as solo or party cohesion with classes and their perks as well enhanced by use of jetpack and various personal shields and their abilities and whatever stats is miles away from Starfield. Which is way to shallow and even worse than Skyrim or Fallout. Looks fine, works decent and overall doesn't seem that bad but still mediocre and a total disappointment. I really don't see any core system to be better than many other older games which we can compare it, let alone to even present something more that we could say it is advancing gaming and other games should emulate that part.
Don't listen to these dum people giving a low ass score and not putting time into the game the amount of stuff to do is insane and cheering picking because of interest is dum I have 60hrs in and I'm having a blast
So you won't buy a game which is free on game pass because someone else didn't like it. Even when many more do like it. Stop being a bloody sheep and make your own opinion.
The weird thing about video game critiques for me is how some people describe a game they like, contrast it to the game in question, point out the (obvious) differences, & then say that makes the game in question bad. Imagine taking your new porsche back to the dealership you bought it from, dented to fuck, covered in mud, & asking for a refund because "it's not as good as my 4x4". Let the people who make it tell you it's intended use & you will avoid the disappointment.
I've been consistently in awe as to how that studio continues to make use of GameBryo. You could see how this was becoming a problem with Fallout 3 and New Vegas, let alone Fallout 4 and 76. Sure, Creation Engine (AKA GameBryo) tools provide modders to achieve some incredible feats, and Bethesda games feature highly talented individuals which mod these games. However, having to say "I'll just wait until the community improves this so-called AAA game" is a poor excuse of anything.
People keep buying their games no matter what so why would their execs fund a new engine or really improve it. They should just pay the 5% to Epic for UE5 if that is really the problem. Only making convo, mate.
Lmao you can literally land on any spot on the planet and you can save up to 5 locations to return to that same spot if you want to. Haters will just hate .. game is amazing
@@bravexheart7 You are not landing on that planet but on an instance. A few square miles with invisible walls. Planets you see from space are just placeholders. Every building is an instance. Like all mini levels. It's 2023..
Tbh it being a looter shooter with a few rpg mechanics is what bethesda has been building to since skyrim. They have been streamlining and downplaying rpg elements since oblivion, but Skyrim is where it really started focusing on the trend of continuous drip feeding of improved leveled loot. Fallout 4 continued the trend and added a bad city builder.
Crazy to think that Elite was doing it on the BBC Micro in 1984. A handful of blokes made that. Forty years later and a studio that employs thousands and has an astronomical budget can't even grasp the basics of flying a spaceship about. It isn't like we had Freelancer, the X series, Independence War, Tachyon, and countless others in the meantime. And of course the god of space combat games, Freespace. That was a linear experience but the battles in that are still amazing today. There is scale, excitement, impact, and spectacle.
@@dusermiginte4647 You're a sucker for Todd's marketing schtick aren't you? Do you also believe that all of the events in Cocaine Bear are true because it says "based on true events" at the start? "Frontier: First Encounters in 1995 introduced Newtonian physics, realistic star systems and seamless freeform planetary landings." How about 1995? The idea that only Bethesda can get physics right because they 'consulted' with NASA is laughable.
How can anyone like Skyrim over this game? Nostalgia glasses in full effect. Starfield is a great sandbox, probably the best in Bethesda's catalogue and even has more RPG elements than any game they made since Oblivion.
It is a space game… are you slow? There literally like a thousand planets and space travel and all of that and you’re telling me it’s not a space game. That’s pretty silly. It’s literally marketed as a space game and is called Starfield. Oh! And it has space suits. I wonder what those are for. Maybe space? Nah it’s just cosplay I guess. Of course it’s a space game.
@@gabecollins5585 A space game where around 1% of playtime is taken in space. You dont fly in space nor explore it, you cant even travel around a system without a menu and a loading screen, its just a place for you to get a survey promt in the map menu and where you get spawned when you try to travel to a new star system. Otherwise you completely skip it via fast travel. Other 40% percent is taken by running around the 3 cities. around 10% is watching loading screens while teleporting all over the place. The rest is taken by running around the prefabs and planet surface without a vehicle, which is a shame since you cant even use your ship to relocate on the map like a kilometer or 2. The ship is just a mobile base and a cargo container when you dont actively seek ship combat. No, teleporting between POIs without even need to board you ship is not traveling nor is watching loading screens when jumping between planets (just playzone instances with different backdrops, planets are not even objects afaik). There is simply no sense of space and distance nor continuity of said space, only teleporting between locations and that leads to no immersion. I mean you dont even need to refuel, fuel capacity is just a matter of convenience, what a space game this is. Take a shot each time i typed "space". This is indeed a Fallout game without stats but with a pocket base that is always with you (which is nice). Comment above was written by someone who never heard of Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen or forgot an /s at the end.
@@gabecollins5585 Starfield is a FPS/RPG in a Space Setting (fast-travel renders the ship pointless) compared to contemporary titles that are FPS/RPG/Space Simulations where all aspects of spaceflight is manual gameplay. In Starfield, the space experience is composed of menus, cut screens & load screens that are not disguised which breaks immersion and though ship customization is generally praised the actual space-ship gameplay is arguably the weakest aspect of the game. Starfield has design limitations that go back decades being sold for $70-100 (and it is bugged and has performance issues)
@@andrecassella6522 We are paying for this game and most of us don't want loading screens as much as is in this game. Its like they are obssed with them. Its not even like most of the areas are that big they can't be preloaded into memory in advance. Just load the one people are entering and the one after. Its not hard.
@@andrecassella6522 imagine if my generation had that attitude. You would never have GTA5. Most games hide loading with crafty narrow corridors etc to make the game seamless. You shouldn't work in the industry if you think a few seconds of loading is fine. Complacency mate. It's the enemy of invention.
Sadly, the fact that so many things can take ages in Starfield is down to the subscription model of play (Xbox / PC gamepass). The longer it takes to play the game the more monthly subscriptions Microsoft gets. So, the developers have fill the game with loads of boring planets and there's no transport when you're on a planet, etc. On top of this, the whole thing feels like something from 10 years ago. What a disappointment.
@Centrioless and thats the whole thing. Each of those games does one thing great but fails at everything else. No game will ever do everything perfect and will please everyone. Either it chooses what it wants to be or loses itself in trying to be everything.
It did on Skyrim but I'm willing to consider it suddenly doesn't for real as Bethesda have become so bad as developers. Remembering some of their best guys left to make other games like The Outer Worlds and they were not replaced.
4:33 You know what makes it worse? Bethesda, a massive studio, still outsourced Starfield to about 27 3rd-party studios, with half of them being basically developer sweatshops.
Noone is saying that. They are just expected to make good games with the millions of dollars they are budgeted with. But they'd rather spend it on diversity hires and safe spaces.
*Hardcore Bethesda fans have entered that chat* Maybe because "a" company was the reason their games thrived for so long, definitely not because of modders
Although i agree. I see why they did it. Most likely the old engine. Creating space that can be traversed without loading screen is isn't simple. Wich is why almost no space game does it. even if it was possible. How many people would actually just sit there flying from one place to another every time. People would end up complaining about the game being a flying simulator. Especially longer routes. Although they could at least have made the loading screens interesting.
then people would instead be complaining that it takes several minutes to get anywhere. They already complain about 2 second loading screens. There's no way actual flight from one place to another could feel "real" without taking too long.
There are games made by a very small team with a very small budget that have mastered seamless space to planet travel. Try Empyrion Galactic Survival. Still one of the best Space simulator survival games with quests and RPG elements out there IMO. It works soooo well. Bethesda could've easily created a seamless experience for us. It's so disappointing.
Maybe you should brace the cutscenes and engage in the gameplay, instead of treating the game like borderlands... False information about the game imo.
That's just it, isn't it? But they will never give up the gamebryo/creation engine. Because it's what they have accustomed their team to. So long as they make enough money to please their shareholders, they will continue to fall 20 years behind other AAA studios.
It's funny when you say "their team" cus they have outsourced work to 27 different studios according to the end credits. And also, I bet most of their team are newer folks. They will please the shareholders, or Microsoft will close the studio and sell the IPs lol
As long as the masses buy their games, they have little reason to invest into something new. Then once the crowd stops buying their crap, they can shake their pockets, and invest 10% of the massive profits and stamp out a new engine, and market something new, and restart the cycle
I knew it would be like this. I can confidently say that my habit of impulsively buying video games is completely broken, thanks to you, Mac. RIP Starfield.
You could've seen this coming a mile away!!! They're awful and didn't have any good IPs to knock off. Just a bunch of other garbage. They compiled garbage and got garbage!
Very curious to hear from you as to how this game is any less of an RPG than Skyrim or any other bethesda titles. I made a list criticizing the "criticisms" from your "review". Im just gonna paste it here again(probably took me more effort in copy pasting the text than it did you reviewing Starfield): > Bethesda has had loading screens for every single city, dungeon, hell even every single building, even some rooms inside those buildings, atleast since the time of Skyrim. They haven't had a "seamless" world for a long time now. How is it that those aren't "boxes" but this is? > Train seems to work no different than Travelling Carts of Skyrim. Those carts also used to stand idle outside every city for you to take and travel between points, and simply gave a loading screen if we took them. > Again, how is fast travel in other Bethesda titles immersive, but not in this? You can choose/not choose to fast travel in every bethesda game, including this one, making the game as "immersive" or as convenient as you want. > How is the AI any worse than any of the previous bethesda titles? > They chose the perk system for this game, but that is a huge part of what enables roleplaying in this game. Ofcourse you can't just pick anything and everything and have to work your way to get better cooler stuff. Funny how you declared that its just a looter shooter and not an RPG, when you literally ignored the entire perk system that grants abilities based on ur preferred choice for character. Whining abt how you cant steamroll through the entire game without giving any thought to your character, build, and the roleplaying systems. There are multiple ways to go about things in this game, even stuff that you showed, with the door requiring lockpick, it can be done without lockpick, which you would know this if you actually engaged with the game. As for that "immersion" that bethesda is known for, it comes from the organic storytelling, where you create your own story/adventure in these worlds through a whole variety of out-of-the-script emergent events, activities, interactions etc., stuff that just happens to you as a player/character, that feels unique and organic. That core is still very much present here in Starfield as well, so I don't really understand what you are talking about. If you don't like it you don't like it, but atleast engage with the game before reviewing it.
except for i could walk everywhere in skyrim/fallout without the need of fast travel while this game (apart from system to system jump obviously ans maybe planet landing which i can accept) doesnt even give me the freedom to fly from planet to planet i littarly had 3 big ass settlement in fallout 4 in a radius which would be a little bit larger than New atlantis whichi could travel without loading screens...separating some areas in its own box via loading screen can be good because of memory's usage and stuff but holy hell
@@paniky6006 No you couldn't walk everywhere, the game required a loading screen for every single major location and even minor ones like dungeons/stations etc. "Planet to planet" is not the same thing as walking 1 km on land without a loading screen lmao. The handcrafted cities and random planet maps in Starfield are huge in size, proportionate to entire maps of their previous games and even bigger than them. You can build multiple of those settlements across each of these large maps and can walk to and fro without any loading screen/fast travel. Starfield by any metric is far more open and bigger than any of their previous titles.
@@billgoad its supossed to be the largest bethesda game but in reality it ends up being a lot of small connected places without vechicles the planets are stupidly big the cities especially new atlantis feels empty just look at the well in new atlantis the ppl there act exactly the same as the ppl in the normal residential area starfield needed atleast another year
@@KruglugBadax I did, played 20 hours before i refunded and yes that is my impression too. Is Fallout 4 in space. Many perks do same thing as in Fallout, the combat is similar regardless of your supposedly build choice. There are no builds same as in Fallout but where there you have VATS and certain perks along with that and you can focus on them to get a somewhat different gameplay feel, as well as gear or the kill animations that creates a mirage which gives the immersion of a different combat style, Starfield is void of those. So at the core is the same, with all the bad parts too while the good parts are missing. Imagine the combat is pretty much no VATS, guns, power armor with jetpack mod without abilities such as throwing your power core as a nuclear grenade or when airborne stumping on enemies to damage them. But you can take a jetpack perk in the top of the tree at max level where you slow time while airborne and aiming down the sight... I mean, you have boxing perk that increased punch damage while your punch swing movement is the same all the time, no dodges, lunges, parries, rolls, kicks, grapples and whatnot. You can parry which makes you move like a snail. Is the same as FO4 but there are no fist weapons. So pretty much you can't favorite your punches so when you want to cycle through ranged weapons and fists you must stop your action, go in inventory and unequip weapon. Like they put some idea towards hand to hand but then completely ignored that part to refine it in a way that has sense for gameplay.
Your point is valid, but I think people seem to forget there are big differences with no mans sky and elite Elite from the last time I played there were no npc to have conversations with no points of interest no built up planets with the ability to explore settlement you pretty much dock in a station and use a bulletin board. No mans sky is so procedural that everything looks same after about 10 planets again quests weren't as fleshed out not to mention they had auto landing and take off. Starfield have tried to flesh some of these quests and planets out way better than elite and no man sky have but its come at a cost. Your asking for an elite game with more planet exploration, more interaction, more animation, more detailed settlements and the gun play and RPG elements. Which even Elite itself doesn't deliver and Frontier themselves probably couldn't deliver. I mean star citizen is still not released most likely because the scope of such a game is far too hard to deliver. I would say the scope of that kind of game would probably take so much cash and resources that its just not feasible and it going as sim as Elite, it is just going to push it into more of a niche market, again making it not worth the cost. Not going to lie I personally love a game like that but your average gamer isn't going to enjoy it.
"And so Hello Games decided to make something big and weird and ambitious that could still work within its small studio structure. For much of No Man's Sky's development, the team was just six people, expanding to 15 by the time it shipped. Still, it was a tiny team considering the buzz around that game" REAL SPACE FLIGHT.
@Austin2Sexy Now, NMS is getting more recognition. Goes to show that starfield is going to turn out semi disappointing. Couldn't get the basics of space themed games right. Bethesda sure is pathetic... 🙄 Plus NMS actually received substantial free updates. Something Bethesda is most likely not looking forward to doing
@@cynicalmemester1694 Yet the modding scene for new vegas looks better than fallout 4... I wonder why that even is the case in the first place. Fallout 4 mods don't even have cars unlike NV which is even more unfortunate...
We went a whole generation (and likely 2) of consoles without an Elder Scrolls game for this. Not a terrible game but the sheer expectation for this that was built by the constant hype generated by Bethesda means, if we got what was promised, that this should have been a masterpiece.
That was my same thought since i first heard about starfield, they made 2 fallout games, why was elderscrolls not next, then starfield after that, it would have been better for starfield cause with more years comes better tech, would be cheaper to achieve seamless space and planet travel.
"the constant hype generated by Bethesda" - Just over a week ago everyone was sh*tting the bed about the LACK of news coming from Bethesda... so... which is it?
@sashimi_sensei it was the constant hype. They have been advertising this game since 2018. We all knew it was coming. Todd Howard was regularly talking about it, there were developers and designers talking about, there was teasers, gameplay trailers, hands on experiences for multiple game-cons, software companies announcing exclusive partnerships, Bethesda pausing 2 of the biggest game franchises to work on this. Everyone was working themselves up for 'Skyrim in Space' (said by Howard). The link with Skyrim on of the most loved and successful action RPGs of all time got everyone excited No idea what you mean about lack of news a week ago. Reviewers already had their hands on the game, we knew it was about to drop.
@@sashimi_sensei Plus I said generated by Bethesda as in they started it. Create a bit of buzz for Starfield, link it to Skyrim and suddenly millions of people around the world were intrigued and they hype train took off. There was near daily speculation on the game from all corners of the internet, thousands of videos from content creators and games channels, game journalists and online articles etc. Don't know why you have hit me with your 'Ackchyually' attitude as if people worries a week ago, only noticed by you it seems, undid half a decade of excitement and hype. This game was one of the most hyped games of all time. This wasn't a FIFA or CoD that seems to have a new game every year it was a one off, years in the making and millions were excited to get their hands on. And ultimately it didn't live up to the hype and was a disappointment.
It doesn't actually feel that much bigger if you view each planet as a village. There's more to do in and around some of the villages (not even towns) in vanilla Skyrim than on a planet in SF.
This game runs in the same engine that bethesda has been using since The Elder Scrolls Redguard. That game came out in 1998. Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, New Vegas, Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Fallout 76 are all running on the same engine that they just rehash every 5 years or there by. It looks similar because it basically is the same engine.
I enjoyed (occasionally hated) SE, but having the game go 1.0 while still cripplingly broken, with the devs dividing the workshop into DLC have and have nots, not fixing longstanding issues, and generally just being a bit scummy, it really soured me to it. You were so limited on creativity by the engine, and I had hundreds of hours wasted by bugs, issues and poor performance. I even spent some time co-managing a server for some friends, hand crafting scenarios for them. It was a nightmare, with a conclusion where the game deleted everything, and wouldn't accept backups. Personally, my money's on a game called "Starship Evo". It wasn't coded by a box of monkeys. You can actually create detailed, intricate, humongous ships with moving parts, small blocks, and have it run well in a multiplayer server. I would miss some of the features SE had. While it's a broken mess, it really has a lot going for it with the features and how it feels. Biggest gaming disappointment for me really.
I respect how they fixed NMS, but even with the updates, I could never get into it. I try every two years or so, I always get very excited for 10 hours but then the experience just gets so samey. Ton of grinding, running over uninteresting procedurally generated planets with buildings and landmarks uniformly scattered, landing on what it essentially one space station with slightly different layout... I guess the game just isn't for me. I'm a sucker for games like Outer Wilds where everything is hand crafted.
Really? I always felt it was herky jerky roblox level nonsense. You can't see the stuff on the ground until you're feet from the surface and there is nothing on any planet worth exploring. NMS is just a glorified inventory management simulator where the only point to the game is to progress the color of items you've got and get more space to store them in. The locations can all be fully explored in seconds and most only give you some items. The combat is roblox status. I've never come close to dying in NMS even on max level alert on ground and space. If you want a fully explorable planet play Star Citizen. It's only cost them 600 million dollars to make it happen and sadly they're full of the same site over and over again with nothing to actually do. 10 years and the planets are barely there. That is what Mac expects Bethesda to shove into an action rpg.
@@ValosarX This! This seamless planet approach is nice to have, but it quickly gets boring and repetitive. I would like SF having it, but really its importance is extremely exaggerated. Whoever played seriously ED or MNS for more than couple of hours must agree. Especially when you land the same planet and POI over and over again. NMS is very simple game. Patterns are everywhere, very strange color palette. Weird, non-detailed ships, atrocious space station designs. Very unrealistic, unbelievable. I would rather have the cut-scene to land, than only one option to land the exact same site 100 times and waste my hour of life to hold the mouse and W.
@@AlesStibal My thoughts exactly, people have diferent tastes and priorities but I think some are focusing too much on nice to have technical details and forgetting what the core gameplay is. Played a lot of NMS and ED, haven't touched ED in years and after playing NMS for a while, despite being well built and somewhat entertaining I always ask myself "what is the point of doing this?" Done it all before...
It was so boring after the 20th time Bethesdas version is better the problem is the stuff on the actual planet extremely boring and repetitive the same 3 mining places to find and the exact same caves
Ah yes, No Mans sky, borned from blatant lies and what they made is just a toy version of a space sim. The planets are small, the ships are arcade, the colors are bright like it is a birthday of an 8 years old.
You know what is a truly immersive RPG? Baldur's Gate 3. It absolutely makes me feel immersed into 4 different personalities in the same way multiple personality disorder does.
KOTOR didn't have seamless planet exploration neither. Nor Mass Effect.I remember how exploration in Mass Effect 2 was so bad compared to Mass Effect 1, that I didn't even bother to play Mass Effect 3 (even though I owned the game). And yet, nobody citicizes this aspect in those games nowadays. For me it's simple - do you want seamless exploration of not-so interesting and endlessly repeatable planets and with pointless quests? Go play NMS. Do you want to play RPG set in space with very unique and meaningful lore and aesthetics and gameplay which contains planet exploration even though it is not that seamless? Play Starfield.
It's not a bad game, but it's definitely not as good as the fanatics would have you believe, it's a very very slow burn game that doesn't start feeling good to play until you're around level 25.
Well in a way it took the no man's sky devs years to make it what it is today when it launched it was a disappointment. They did end up making it right but it wasn't on launch. Bethesda thou never seems to fix the big issues even fallout 4 on console is still pretty broken sadly you can't get mods like on pc to fix it.
Razorfist said it best on twitter. "Bethesda - a game studio that doesn't even ask for your character class anymore - is now asking for your pronouns." You can't make this shit up.
@@varmastiko2908fascist, Marxist, communist, Bolshevik all the same to me, either way bethesda's taking the ESG money and focused more on pronouns then they did on role playing.
@@dutube99 Ya you can take it off so long as you're on a planet with oxygen and the conditions aren't extreme (like really hot or cold or radioactive etc). So in the main cities, you totally can take it off and just wear normal clothes. The commenter here is upset that he can't sprint infinitely, if you sprint for too long your O2 drops to 0 and CO2 starts to build up and then you lose health. The running speed is fine and doesn't deplete O2. There definitely should be vehicles in this, like some kinda hovercraft.
@@Spodikus How the F is Bethesda in 2023 still making games like its 2008? At this point they are behind other major studios in engine tech by more than a DECADE. Skyrim, which was kinda behind at the time was 13 YEARS ago.
@@amoeba8888because its registered as an animal most likely a horse just with a skin on top pretty clever even the own devs who work with full engine couldn’t figure it out
this whole starfield launch made me finally try out skyrim and get immersed in it (i only played a few hours of it before) - i raised the difficulty, turned on the survival mode and my god the immersion in that game is amazing. plus the survival mode forbids fast travel so it made me really feel like tha part of that world. i finally got into it
Depending on how high you set that difficulty though... On highest difficulty, things have so much health bloat, the only viable playstyle ends up being stealth archery for big crits. Well, maybe not only viable... but the combat does turn into a slog
@@kwando472 yeah, i actually played a lot of morrowind in my childhood. and a bit of oblivion. its just that for some reason i had some biased apprehension about skyrim from what i heard from other people (due to its leveling adjustment, where the enemies adjust to your level so no matter if you are lvl1 or lvl70 the bandits will pose a similar challenge, at least thats what i heard i dont know the nitty gritty of the details, maybe i am wrong)
Starfield is a sandbox game and not an open world rpg with an old game engine. They never promised gameplay like no mans sky or elite dangerous which are both open world. Being able to do these things in starfield would get very old very quick and you would fast travel everywhere anyways after a few hours. Also lets not forget that modding is gonna absolutely change the game over time and bethesda acknowledged that before launch. This review is an opinion and just that. Some people enjoying this game and plenty of reviews that are positive because they take a different approach to the game.
"This review is an opinion and just that." Well, yeah, and so are the positive reviews as well. Just opinions. Their value isn't any greater. This opinion is as valuable as the positive reviews, and it should be noted that this particular opinion does make some good points that cannot be discounted. I do find this interesting that a AAA game developer that has worked on a game for years, or the people who support said developer, are relying on "modding" to change the game, insinuating that the game will be made better. Shouldn't the game already be better? Shouldn't the game be able to live up to the self-created overhype put out be Bethesda, especially at the retail prices that they were charging? Why should people who dislike the game be told, "Well, you gotta wait for the modding"? Modding will not erase the contradiction of ship-building either. I mean, you can customize your ship in many ways, but in the end, all it will be used for is standard combat and as a storage unit. Even traveling is negated by the fast travel option. So even though aesthetically pleasing for a few minutes, ship-customization becomes pointless. As you even point out, "you would fast travel everywhere anyways after a few hours" (which is happening now....many don't even bother with flying unless they have to). As one player stated: ""I never felt excitement or awe, no goosebumps as my engines fired, no sense of grandeur as I set down on a new world. That's because despite cruising from one end of the galaxy to the other in Starfield, I never felt like I was really going anywhere." Comparing Starfield to NMS, ED, or SC, and Bethesda's input on the subject, is another debate for another time. Having said that, it is safe to say that for many in the playerbase, Starfield did not live up to its overhyped press. The game was supposed to set a new standard in gaming, and unfortunately all Bethesda did was remake FO4 with a Milky Way dressing. For some, having another version of FO4 is fine. It's was the game that they enjoyed. But the reality is that this game isn't ground-breaking. It is a cookie-cutter version of all their other games. The negative reviews cannot be discounted. Again, their value is as high (or low) as any of the positive reviews. Frankly, this game will be on sale at 75% off retail price in 6 months, whether people think its a good game or a bland rehash of the usual Bethesda game.
Things like fast travel/teleportation REALLY kill immersion. I truly discovered this for the first time after playing Fallout 4's survival difficulty/mode. Man that was a breath of fresh air and created some of the best, most memorable gaming moments of my life(of course mixed with the difficulty/danger as well).
That's some fuxking bullshit. Survival was fun yea. But WHY do you need to forced not to use fast travel? In skyrim, oblivion, fallout 3, ect you DIDN'T need to fast travel, but the option was there. This game doesn't exactly give you the choice
@@absolutelyfookinnobody2843 No fast travel forces you to get immersed in the world. In Fallout 4 it works well also because of the rapid changes in weather but more importantly random events/enemy spawns. The world feels more 'alive' and you will generally encounter all sorts of things(not to mention a LOT of danger). I remember one unforgettable experience.. I had none of my own settlements yet(except the starting one in the top left of the map) and had to go to the bottom left of the map. Getting there was interesting(exploring a lot on the way), but getting back even more so. I was overencumbered with destroyed power armour, dying of exhaustion, hunger, thirst, wounds, sickness - you name it, but I made it in the end. On top of that I was very low on many items(including for healing). Was an unforgettable journey. There's something special about playing the game like that, especially as some enemies can just end you in one hit - and having a completely non-combat build on top of that(put points into a lot of other stuff including computers and lockpicking to not have to skip content/loot). Out of thousands of games, the way survival mode was done remains one of the best experiences I've had.
RDR2 was another great example of this, i preferred to not fast travel as you could get so much out of just travelling from point A to B, all the random encounters, secrets, weather changes to enjoy etc
It's weird. I've put 20 hours into Starfield and am really enjoying it. Yet I'm watching this and your previous review and agreed with most of your gripes.
Yeah, had the same with Fallout 4. Enjoyed playing it and had fun for the first few hours. Then the dopamine wore off and piece by piece the front crumbled. The same with Skyrim, but at different points. I hate the wasted potential the most, simple additions could have brought so much more value to the players.
It seems the main problem with him is: He don't like shooters. I love Cyberpunk 2077 and abandoned FO3 and 4 for being not good enough at it, so I probably might be happy with Starfield, but first wait for the GamePass-version because of him. I hope there are enough assists to play it properly with a gamepad.
Saw there is a 2 two-week free Star Citizen pass. Played it today for the first time after being highly skeptical but I'm already enjoying flying around more than the 2 days i spent in Starfield.
I only just thought about it but it's actually crazy that there aren't any alien races you can play as. Bethesda touting this as their first new universe in 25 years and coming from the company that made the Elder Scrolls series where you can play 10 different races all with detailed history and lore surrounding them seems a bit of a cop out tbh, I dunno tho maybe aliens are coming in DLC 😅
the delusions some people have to think starfield could've win game of the year of over TOK or let alone BG3 which is said to be one of the best games ever made, what a joke of a game, 8 years in development for a crappy fallout in space with 1000 planets? more like 10000 loading screens.
Dude you summed up my feelings PERFECTLY. I completely 100% agree with everything you said. Ive been saying to my friends that 10 well done planets would be fucking amazing but people want the same planets spread over 300 or something stats and then everything loses quality
Imagine trying to add a third universe to stand next to Fallout and Elder Scrolls... then proceeding to shit out this bland mess. Bethesda is dead, don't look forward to anything coming from them in the future.
To prepare for starfield and make it more immersive I've decided that from now on in my daily life when I walk in to another room or building i will stop and close my eyes for 5 seconds
lmaoaoa.... THAT'S HILARIOUS 😂😂
🤣🤣🤣
Brilliant comment 😂
😂
10/10
10000% on immersion being critical to a roleplaying game.
Frankly, how do you have a space game without the most important element...space.
"Immersion" as in taking impossibly long amounts of time to travel between planets like it would in reality?
@@NotSoFast71 yes, or do it smart like elite dangerous or star citizen.
Allow faster than light travel.
But give players control.
Not spend 95% of time playing a space game without space.
Not to mention, you spend all this time building an incredible spaceship piece by piece... and you don't get to fly it.
@@NotSoFast71 You really dont get it do you? it doesnt have to be exactly like real life lool... the criticism here is that the space travel is fake in this game because its just loading screens, its not seamless like in star citizen or NMS,you cannot fly your spaceship directly into the planets orbit and land down etc... thats what was necessary and sadly the creation engine cant do that shit so its just endless loading screens.
@@alphadraconian1114Also if they have only 4 systems, like 40 planets max that would have worked fine for space travel.
There is also still a lot of gender stereotypes and a lack of inclusivity. This is the future and not some neanderthal conservative social program. In fact, when it comes to white people... less is more. These companies need to be more sensitive to minority rights. That's the biggest issue with this game. The rest can be fixed.
It’s wild how Bethesda in recent years has managed to make a mixed if not bad game and typically unpaid labor (mod authors) a valid business strategy.
It's a risky decision though. All a competitor needs to do is have an upgraded copycat that takes a lot of identity from Bethesda style games. Once a strong IP with some decent funding comes in, Bethesda will have to step up their game.
Most ppl are on consoles who can't use mods. I think most pc players aren't nodding this game either
Glad I stuck with my own rule, never pre order no matter the hype.
What game teached you that? Mine was X Rebirth
@@rogierdikkes Fallout 4 for me.
But I also broke that rule for Hogwarts Legacy and I don't regret it.
@@rogierdikkes Rome 2
@@thomaslevy7249 hogwarts legacy is a generic “rpg” with Harry Potter skin that takes advantage of nostalgia. This is why we keep getting bad games.
@@thomaslevy7249 That one is also quite simple but hits the mark on a few core systems that makes it entertaining enough and the combat is fun. Starfield is just tedious. All its systems are either fine enough or flat out bad. Haven't seen anything to make me say, yes i like this so much that other games should emulate it. But plenty of which made me say that or the other game did it better. And this one thing is boring or annoying.
What’s wild is the amount of 9/10 & 10/10 reviews that don’t mention any of this
Because often they are not even reviewed by 'gamers'. And very often not reviewed with gaming in mind, but sales. Simple as.
Paid review
@@sunnyjim1355 so ACG and Gman are not gamers? Maybe people gave them these reviews because they hoenstly enjoyed the game.
They’re Paid by Bethesda to give that score.
@@Dahellraiderwell, people do fall for the hype like 95% of the time. There's plenty of people who play games like they don't have a job, yet skim over anything that would taint their experience of the game because they just want it to fit their expectations.
A friend lent me an Xbox so I could try this game and see for myself how it feels. And now I can firmly say that you absolutely hit the nail on the head with your review, Mac. Starfield is a rushed, soulless shell of what could have been a great game. On the plus side, it reminded me of how good No Man's Sky is, so I'll probably jump back in just to fly around in space a little, like in an actual space game.
I think Bethesda did it on purpose.. They took the time to fill in all those little details, but left the rest of the game a shell so it would be easiest for the modder's to do their thing. This has the potential to be a good game, in about 4-5 years or so.
I don't think it was rushed, given it was 9 years in development. I think there was a failure in leadership and direction. It's like they took the safest route possible, afraid to be innovative or imaginative. Also, one of the big issues was mentioned in the vid - 1000 planets with cut and paste assets (or barren). That, and the load screen ship piloting (which NMS did SO much better), removed even the exploration aspect that was one of the key charms of other Bethesda games. As he said in the vid, they would have been far better off making a dozen richly detailed planets with tons of unique places to explore and interact with.
But they had 6 years to make it!
@@paulw5039bill gates will be after Todd’s balls if he doesn’t have them in his collection already
@@TheDude1980 Yeah I was immediately disappointed the moment I realised I didn’t actually need to manage my ship’s fuel. in NMS you had to keep an eye on your resources to make sure you had enough fuel to get around otherwise you would be in big trouble and stuck somewhere. In Starfield there’s nothing like this. Ship building is a fucking awesome feature but what’s the point ? The ship combat is boring and you don’t even need to fly in your ship to get anywhere.
8 years... For this "revolutionary new IP", full of cloned locations, invisible walls and loading screens
and low FPS on a super computer.
Revolutionary new IP with all its core perks and obvious gameplay approach as well character movement range copy paste from Fallout 4 while seemingly missing the parts that made that work. Really disappointing...
If TES6 follows same recipe they can just cancel it now.
@@somnorila9913 I'm worried for TES 6 now. I don't get hyped for anything and I never preorder games anymore. It seems we have just one flop after another.
You mean: 8 years for a Bethesda game
All true but it's also a very fun game to play. Like many I came in with low expectations because Bethesda's recent track record is garbage. Ignore the criticisms and try it for yourself, the $1 for 14 day Gamepass subscription is still going FYI
What I don't understand though is why are all of these loading screens not just hidden? When you get in the lift, why don't the doors just close, it loads the area, and the doors reopen? Who the hell thought "nah, let's just have a black screen instead"!?
engine limitations...creation engine needs to cut the player out to load a new segment
@@paniky6006 But that would still be fine right? Like all it needs to do is take a screenshot, freeze your screen on that screenshot for 2 seconds to unload and reload the player, then it can keep going. So long as the movement before the screen freeze and immediately after both blend into the same frozen image it wouldn't break the immersion.
xbox series s ram limitations as well Bethesda was a PC developer now they are console kiddies game rental pass fodder studio
@@ALifeOfWineThat would still be a loading screen.
I'm guessing, because the engine keeps track of thousands of objects that litter Bethesda games, if it wasn't segmented it would probably take 20 minutes to load at the start, run out of RAM and stutter into a slide show - like STALKER did if you left too many guns lying around.
Starfield is just the natural progression of Todd Howard's design philosophy - which is to churn out games that are increasingly dumbed down in order to appeal to as wide an audience as possible (in order to cover the ever-inflating production budgets). My first grumblings of dissatisfaction with Todd came with Fallout 3 - I had fun with it, but my final impression was "It's just Oblivion with guns" (this was actually a common complaint at the time). I was hyped for Fallout 3, and ultimately walked away disappointed.
My moment of clarity, funnily enough, came with Skyrim. The leveling system in Skyrim is (to put it bluntly) utter shite, and It didn't take long for me to notice that most of the dungeons in Skyrim were either corridors with a treasure chest at the end, or corridors that looped around back to the entrance. I thought, "I can't be the only who noticed this, right?" And sure enough, there were forum and reddit threads that discussed this very topic (some of them still exist, if you're willing to do a little digging). It was when I saw somebody actually PRAISING this terrible design that it finally clicked - I'm not Todd Howard's target audience, that mouth breathing buffoon is Todd's target audience.
And sure enough, when the hype train for Fallout 4 kicked into overdrive, I saw the same telltale signs of Fallout getting the "Skyrim treatment" (that, and I just assumed everything coming out of Todd's mouth was BS), so I simply avoided it - the same way that I'm avoiding Starfield, and the same way that I'm going to avoid Elder Scrolls VI.
I'm convinced now that Todd Howard genuinely thinks that you can improve RPGs by removing as much actual role playing as humanly possible. And the massive commercial success he's enjoyed has only incentivized him to continue with this approach.
I can't wait for the Fallout 5 interactive movie to drop in 2030 (/s).
I think they have added to the RPG and character progression in Starfield compared to Fallout 4.
I feel the roleplaying elements are superior in Starfield.
In Starfield, at the start when visiting the planet (moon?) Kreet, you meet a Crimson Fleet chief (evil faction guy) who wants your ship. You can actually have a conversation with him and persuade him to ensure you keep your ship. The persuassion system is interesting.
This is just one example, where Starfield blows Fallout 4 out of water. You an actually talk to an NPC from an "evil" faction and have it your way. Compare that to Fallout 4, where you had to ONLY fight the Raiders.
Also here you can join the Crimson Fleet - 'evil' faction and do quests for them. In Fallout 4, you cannot join the Raiders.
That itself is a huge win for roleplaying.
Another thing - Starfield got back skills and has a very interesting character progression system, many dialogues have skill checks. Fallout 4 booted out Skills which was a huge issue for character progression and roleplaying experience. Then you have traits which are a throwback to Fallout New Vegas.
At the start itself in Starfield, I see that character progression and roleplaying is far superior here.
Also the characters you meet at New Atlantis were interesting and some of their Misc quests were interesting and funny.
For me the disappointing thing about Starfield is not having atmospheric flights in a small vessel. I had a great time playing my favorite space game 'Empyrion Galactic Survival' - exploring and taking in the scenery of those alien worlds, observing POIs (Point of Interests) from a high position, sometimes even firing on POI turrets using my ship's missiles. Sad we cannot do all of that here. If they would have included all of that Starfield would have been a ground breaking game. They should have pushed and got that included IMHO
But as of now, it is an RPG set in space and should be treated as one. It is not a sandbox space simulator.
@@KamleshMallickso starfield beats one of the worst games Bethesda ever made in terms of being a rpg. Wow what a low bar you have. Now compare it to something like fallout New Vegas and see how short it falls of that
@@thedoomslayer5863 my response was to the OP who said every new Bethesda game is dumbed down further from the previous.
I gave examples refuting his statement.
You opted to shift goal posts. Either you counter the OP or my points with examples instead of making copy paste arguments from the Internet.
@@KamleshMallick Hes not wrong. Compare morrowind and oblivion then morrowind and skyrim.
Compare Fallout 3 and Fallout 4.
If you cant see the difference there and how watered down each was from the last then having any kind of discussion with you would be meaningless
Starfield helped me realize that I liked the older Bethesda games because I'm a fan of the Sims. I've long considered Oblivion/Fallout 3 /Skyrim some my favorite games but I don't think a single character they've made apart from Serana is actually memorable in any way. Just like the sims. Sims don't really have personalities, they just exist in the world and follow a basic routine that is enough for me to play make believe and create my own stories.
That's missing from Starfield. It has all the issues that the older games have but none of the stupid charm I actually enjoyed.
Bethesda, despite never really being good (since Morrowind at least) at making proper RPGs with choices and consequences, used to always succeed at environmental story telling. By cramming this game full of planets to up the number so people feel like they're in a vast universe, they've hamstrung their greatest strength: their ability to give you that feeling of discovery when stumbling across a building or ruin and exploring it, finding out the story behind it.
I’m guessing your not counting fonv because they only published it and not developed it. But you should because it’s basically fo3 dlc. And it was full of choice and consequence and branching quest paths. Ceasers legion, ncr, brotherhood, even a neutral path. That’s what ppl wanted it starfield
@@heat9238 Yes, Obsidian gets the well-earned credit for Fallout New Vegas which succeeds where Fallout 3 failed in terms of meaningful choices, dialogue and factions. I wouldn't consider New Vegas a DLC for 3, while it borrows heavy on the assets and essential parts under the bonnet, the game is unique and original. Unfortunately, no longer something we can call Bethesda games.
@@djwoody1649 yeah it’s very unfortunate man. Feels like we’ve been waiting longer than a decade for Bethesda to return to form. But instead they seem to think we want quantity over quality. I fear elder scrolls 6 will be the final nail in the coffin.
@@heat9238 Fo3 dlc? Are you crazy? Come on now, you really can't be serious
@@heat9238 Let's hope not but I think it is all but certain that you are going to be right about TESVI. I guess we didn't realise how lucky we were.
I'm trying my best to like Starfield. But... On my first two planets visited for exploration (Luna & Mars) the game gave me two identical collapsed mines as unknown markers. Same dead bodies, same layout, same loot. My heart sank and I thought I'm going to struggle to stay into this game now.
Refund it while you can
Yep it happened 3 times to me
There's more to the game than what your seeing don't but into these haters the layouts aren't bad perfectly fine actually turn off your brain and you'll see what the game offers
Unlike No Man's Sky where every POI is totally unique and not a clone, right?
@@robovader7625 Oranges and apples in countless ways: legacy, money, genre, target audience, vision... on and on. But, you know that. You just wanted to be snarky.
I can't get over the fact that even now, they can't do natural overhangs or caves; seeing low detail smooth terrain give way to far more detailed static rock model geometry - one of a few repeatedly used across the planets - just cracks me up!
I remember in morrowind, not sure if still a problem, they couldn't do covered areas alot of the time because the rain was just an overlay so it would fall even indoors.
I remember playing Morrowind for the first time and being completely lost and in awe. It was magical. Oblivion: Great! Fallout 3: AMAZING! Skyrim: Great! I thought that Fallout 4 the engine was just not up to scratch then... But now, eight years later and they are still using this engine??? At this point I'm starting to wonder if the devs at Bethesda don't actually have any idea how to use anything else.
They dont. Its like they lost the original code for it and now just have to keep using it over and over again or start from scratch.
Youd think with all the money they have they should be able to transition to Unreal Engine 5 with relative ease, if they really wanted to.
I knew this game was in trouble when Todd came out and said that they're still using the creation engine/gamebryo engine for Starfield and most likely ES6.
Fallout 4 downgraded some RPG elements, but it's still fun to play and has a lot of interesting locations and characters. Starfield feels almost all ai generated.
The procedural areas literally are AI generated lol
"I'm a beam me up Scotty in this game" - This is way i love this channel.
Ol'Meg ...lol...
This dude is US.
@ 4:11
It's mind-blowing how a studio of this size starting from Oblivion since about 20 years cannot implement a transparent WINDOW! So that you enter a house and see stuff outside. Yeah, we had limitations all these years ago, but now, seriously? a loading screen? Mac, big shoutout for your honest review!
yeah, loved it about Witcher 3, you ran into a house, no loading screen and on top of that you could look outside by this lens like thick and round glass which showed you outside but distorted.
It's the same game engine as 20 years ago...
You can see outside from the spaceship interior cell, so evidently it's now possible.
If Bethesda released oblivion to the same hordes of complainers on par with todays it would have been shat all over just the same.
You actually can. I saw several interiors with windows I can see both inside and outside.
Love the Kingdom Come shout out. Game is so underrated. I hope they make another one
@mablesfatalfable6021 Not really. Metacritic has it at a 76 for PC and a 69 on the PS4. The game did have some bugs and issues at launch which probably attributed to this. I got this game day 1 and loved it. I had the ps4 version too..
Game does have a pretty good cult following though. There's nothing really like Kingdom Come out there..
They are, its on the way
@@mablesfatalfable6021 it was very much underated. It had some pefomance issues but so does many triple A games as we can see in starfield yet metacritic slammed the KcD for it and ignores it in triple A.
Proper RPG. I remember Macks review on it and it was spot on.
Why is kingdom come good? Because it’s made by openly far right game devs from Poland who wanted to make an authentic game on European medieval history. Entire gaming industry and media boycotted and tanked that game
Bless you Mac for being there for us, the gamers.
I’m so thankful for you and your reviews.
They are on and to the point with no holds barred.
Keep up the incredible work!
"Us gamers" lmao. Judging by the comment section on this channel I really don't think you claim the "gamer" title.
All I see in the comments are bitter, reactionary losers. The "what has happened to society, everything is sh*t" living in the past type of people.
I was gutted when I saw the reviews for this game, and then ... I played it for myself and forged my own opinion. This is the game I've enjoyed the most this year. I haven't had this much fun in a game since Elden Ring and the BG3 early access.
This game is a labor of love. All the criticisms are valid, but this definitely isn't a bad game.
I landed on a barren moon and watched the the sun rise with Jupiter in the background. It transported be back to when I was ten years old, sneaking around at night under the aurora borealis of Skyrim with Jeremy Soule swelling in the background. Nothing else compares. Choose to immerse yourself and StarField delivers.
Deep breaths, fanboy. Just don't forget to take the d1ldo out of your a$$. @@waitbalthy6342
It seems for now nothing is ever going to beat the original Mass Effect Trilogy in terms of space RPG and No Man's Sky in terms of space flight.
True
Imagine if you got Skyrim and you only fought bandits. No Giants or Falmer or Trolls or Undead. Just Bandits. And all travel was through fast travel through a clunky menu. That's what we got. The Bethesda that made Skyrim doesn't exist anymore it's dead.
yeah it really is clunky in a bad way, no way was this in development for 7 years it feels they started working on it 2-3 years ago, i'm not impressed.
Haven't bought or played myself but watching all these playthrough videos i cant help but feel the hud is shit. Not only does it make the screen look unnecessarily crowded, its also immersion breaking, having someone's name tag attached their character all the time, makes it feel like some shitty free to play mmo. I hope most of these hud elements can be turned off.
Yeah at least give me humanoid aliensnti fight goddamn
Uhm, have you even played the game?
But you don’t just fight people. Have you even played the game lol?
Bethesda has reached the limit of the creation engine. I believe that the designer team is perfectly capable of implementing everything you have mentioned in your video, but regrettably the decission to use the archaic in-house engine is made during very early stages and this decission ties both hands of the developers. I would also like to point out that the character models look rather 'Stiff' or 'Plasticky', especially the eyes. A smaller studio with much less budget has managed to pull out a lot of things much better (Larian - BG 3). In addition, the graphics Starfield has really does not justify such high system requirements. Optimization, anyone? Even the AI is horrible. Enemies cannot react sniping tactics from afar, most cases the target you are engaging even fails to realize that bullets are sucking the life out of him and does not bother taking an action. I also have a serious issue with that XP indicator popping at the center of the screen right under the crosshair, ruining my attention and breaking the immersion of combat.
Starfield is designed to be an Xbox success, this is also a problem when the hardware capabilities of Xbox consoles are considered. A lot had to be cut from the game so it can ''Barely' be 30 fps on Xbox platforms. Such a shame.
The game also has an identity crisis. Wants to be an RPG, fails to deliver. Wants to be space sim, epicly fails to deliver. Wants to be an FPS looter-shooter, fails to deliver. I believe that the steam score will be 'Mostly positive' to 'Mixed' and metacritic score will be around mid 70s.
You will be surprised. I'm predicting a 90 user score on metacritic
The engine can just be improved instead of using a no one. They need to keep updating it.
Personally I'd rather have a Skyrim dlc in the same engine at this point. I need that adventure back
No. They just cant use the engine properly. Check out "Open Cities" for Skyrim... why is that a mod and not how the game is? Because the devs are soggy pretzels.
@@SamahLama The engine could be rebuilt if BethesdaGS weren't too incompetent and lazy to make it good and optimized, this iteration of Creation Engine is so massively unoptimized it barely managed to make ends meet. Also doesn't help the fact that this was made with Xbox Series S in mind and that box of mediocrity is holding back Xbox/PC platforms as a whole.
the creation engine already reached its limit with Oblivion, players just largely overlooked how dated it was, no one questioned why they couldn't climb ladders or be on a moving platform
Lets remember they DELIBERATELY left out vehicles because the planets are so small. Other bethesda games had horses and fast power armor. This was to hide how small and fake their planets really are.
I love how the running joke for years was this was just going to be "Skyrim in space"...but we didn't even come close to getting something as good as "Skyrim in space". This sums up gaming for this past decade perfectly.
Fallout 4 in space
I wouldn't be too cynical. It's a pretty great year for games and Starfield doesn't even factor in to that conversation. Bethesda have been milking ancient tech for decades and winning people over with pure heartfelt soul. Now that soul has faded, there's not a lot left, especially in 2023.
They've been left in the dust and are out of touch with the pace of what people expect from a great modern game. We've moved on from this creaking template.
end up being beta Fallout 4 in space
skyrim felt amazing at the time. Groudbreaking
It got Skyrim's shitty UI though lol
Even if they needed loading screens from a technical standpoint, there’s no reason they couldn’t make them immersive. Mass Effect 1 from 2007 had airlocks, and elevators that allowed environments to load without ruining the connectedness and immersion felt in the world. They also gave opportunities to further develop lore.
Literally haven't seen a loading screen while playing Starfield. Shit is instant once you jump in from another system there is a whole new system directly after the cut screen. You take off or land you're in space or your ship instantly after the cut scene. Go through a door you're inside. The speed at which this game loads new areas is insane. My only assumption is that Mac doesn't meet the system requirements
@@ValosarX that, in my opinion, is even more distracting. Couldn't they implement a system, that preloads the interiors, when you are near the building or a simple pressure/decontamination chamber to hide fadeout loading screen?
Wasn't this whole ssd-no-more-loading-screen a thing for current consoles? (And yes, starfield is a console game available on pc).
Do you remember Dungeon Siege?
A Game from 2003 with only one loading screen at the start.
You can traverse from the deepest Dungeon to the highest Mountain without ever seeing a single loading screen besides the first initial one.
@@ValosarX mac? Wtf are you on about?
Theres a loading screen literally at 0:46 when he video starts. Massive cope
Resident evil did it well in the nineties they just show a door opening or closing i forget now
even fallout 4 elevators do it
Honestly when will people learn? Stop preordering! Whether the game turns out to be good or not if we don’t pre order the producers will HAVE to step up their game.
I was hoping for a more of a NMS type game with a mix of Skyrim. This feels like it’s trying to be too many things but not being good at any one thing as a result.
It’s such a shame
I've come to realize that when someone or a big company has to keep reminding us, i.e. (the consumers) of their past achievements; this tends to be a red flag of whats to come.
We were shown very little gameplay & a lot of cherry-picked cut scenes, even a live action trailer.
It's kind of sad when developers stop pushing the envelope & are content in giving us the same recipes to the table.
100%
It was the same case with outer worlds We made new vegas.
Same happened with Back 4 Blood claiming it was made by the makers of Left 4 Dead, although it was only like 2 low level former Valve employees
The idea of a few, well crafted, planets would of been WAY BETTER! They could of even added secret planets that are either discovered by the player and can then make their own settlements or have "Random Events" where NPCs will find those planets, notify the other NPCs and the player, and then a settlement will slowly be built on that planet.
And they could spend further resources by custom crafting new planets and inserting them behind the scenes as time goes on - giving players reasons to continue to investigate. It would've been so much better to build up to an expansive galaxy, than to try and roll out all of that at once.
People have been telling game developers quality over quantity for YEARS but none of them listen.
Bloat does NOT equal good game!
I'm sorry but could "have" not could "of."
'would have'* 'could have'* see how grammar works now?
tragic but knew it would be this way the hyped gamers months before with all there speculation tripe. well this is what you get.
I thought for a game to be considered open-world by today's standards, there have to be no loading screens between regions? There was a long debate in the Zelda fanbase about how the older games are not open-world because there are loading screens between areas. Now Starfield comes out and you literally cannot get from one area to another without a loading screen, and people call it open-world?
Bethesda call it open world, some reviewers say it's open world. I dunno. Far too many loading screens to be an "open world".
Yea most tiny ass shops even have loading screens lmao. What year is it?
So what was the technology Bethesda was waiting on to be able to make this game? Because i see nothing we couldn't make years ago.
Todd's sweet little lies😊
yeah true. i guess they knew that running this game on a console with a hdd would have been unplayable
the current highest chipset for the godforsaken thing to run at any decent pace at all.
Play the game and you find out … stop listening to this BS fake review shit
@wulfenheim1655 crack on then...
I ended up refunding. The biggest problem with Starfield is that it's made by Bethesda, and Bethsoft doesn't refine, they expand. They took the underlying Fallout 4 mechanics, didn't improve or refine any of the mechanics that made it one of the worst received Fallout games, and just bolted some extra space themed tat to the package.
Same... Fallout 4 reskinned with all its bad parts and in some cases without its good parts too that made my overall experience unsatisfying.
Lmao this game is nothing like fall out 4
What trolls
@@bravexheart7shooting is exactly the same as fo4 juat without vats, so its worse. Inv is just as bad, ui is terrible on pc, somehow has even MORE loading screens than fo4........yeah its bad, but keep huffing that copium son.
@@bravexheart7 Just compare the perks, what they say they do as most are the same.
Compare how the character moves, or the combat options for melee.
See how power armor with jetpack mod compares to the jetpack in Starfield.
See how the perks synergize with your build approach.
It's not just the same, is worse even...
@@mablesfatalfable6021 Equating sales with how well recieved a game is doesnt work because pre release hype drives the majority of sales. The game garnered a ton of positive buzz at release but the problems were a slow burn and took a while to get to, the community doesnt regard F4 as strong in reteospect.
Also, lowest effort DLC in the series. To me its usually a sign that not enough players are sticking around to buy post release content.
like the game but a basic surface vehicle missing is beyond wild, imagining humans just first getting to space walking around endlessly in the elements 🤣
Right? We had surface vehicles on the moon in 1971. In this we're walking around to the same procedurally generated buildings and landscapes and anomalies over and over and over again in what year is it? 2,3xx?
Vehicles would end up exposing the limits of the procedurally generated tile the player is in much faster.
It would also expose the identical design of types of points of interest faster. One design of the abandoned mine, to be copied and pasted, one of the cryo lab to get the same treatment, etc...
Thats why I think they didnt add any type of vehicles, it would destroy the illusion of expansive exploration at an unacceptable rate.
The fact that cities don't have maps, whether digital or paper was done for the same reason imo.
Lore wise it makes zero sense.
Humanity can chart solar systems but gave up making simple city maps of the type we've had historically since ancient Sumeria?
Similar to the absence of vehicles, they may have thought if the player has a detailed map of the city they will not only see how small the cities are but also not explore them thoroughly.
Also given the mechanic of gaining quests by overhearing random NPC conversations they really needed the player to wander around aimlessly.
These choices compel the player to simply log more hours and are an attempt at supporting the facade of the games environments. Those are not necessarily bad goals but are bad ways to meet them.
I expect modders will create something, a vehicle bay for your starship containing a 3-4 person offroad vehicle with internal air, a weapon or two, and a shield.
I suspect Bethesda haven't done it because they have never done one before, and they don't know how to effectively program the physics.
Congratulations on Number 10 in trending, you deserve it for your years of truth.
Looks like Larian had nothing to worry about after all. Imagine if this and BG3 released at the same time.
They both release on 6th of September
@@dissinlol BG3 released on PC a month ago.
To be fair BG3 is not that wow. It's just that Original Sin games were good and BG3 is an improvement on those. While Fallout 4 was good enough with a hint of lost potential and Starfield is a big downgrade on that.
Agree with all the criticism. Ive only got 10 hours into it but all of the points brought up are valid. The map... or lack of is what really drives me crazy. I still think it will eventually be a decent game after some updates but it does not live up to the hype and expectations
I'll just stick to my indie devs, they still have passion and a pair to provide people with quality experiences. I've been playing Baldur's Gate 3 all day and i absolutely love it.
I've been waiting 20 yrs for BG3. Can't say it's quite as good as 2 but I'm still having a blast.
I'm gonna give SF a wait and see.
It really does seem when a developer gets too large they become soulless. Blizzard is the same.
Thank you for actually saving me money, Mack. You're the best.
My thoughts exactly! 😊
Yep I was gonna pick it up next week but now I won't.
Yeah! Poor Mack... keeps taking it for the Team.
@@genex8944ya should its only 0.025$ with game pass
If you don't have Game pass, why don't you? Game is on game pass! Play it and make your on mind about game. Game has it flows but is it not as bad as he said. The bigest problem is creation engine and its limitations. Regardig bugs I had 3 bugs in 25 hours. I don't defend bethesda but it is not shit as he claims.
It boggles the mind how no one at Bethesda said this ain’t it chief. We need a more immersive space travel not load screens.
I also knew rather quickly it was a dud. It actually made me rather play mass effect andromeda instead, and I don’t like that game.
Some of these reviewers seriously piss me off. Clearly some were shilling hard.
As a gamer, I can not agree more with this analysis. Things that some people might thing are small details, are actually a VERY big deal when it comes to breaking immersion. That feeling of getting into my ship and taking off into space is great, and can make or break the immersion. Also, there is nothing worse than a loading screen to destroy immersion.
I remember playing Anthem, and the worst thing I hated about that game was was that it was one big loading screen.
@@JeffReams Oh geez that just re-unlocked a core memory I had completely forgotten when remembering how much I enjoyed anthem. I forgot how fucking long the loading was lmao
Back in the 90s on the Amiga/ST scene there was a game called Damocles. You coukd get in any vehicle and take it for a drive, anywhere. That included finding all kinds of spacecraft that you could just get in and literally take off, head to the stars and fly to a different planet, land and get out again to star exploring. All that in one load from a floppy disk and a great player experience. Granted its not Starfield but youd think these days provuding that kind of good player experience should be standard by now
Gaming, movies, music, everything that used to entertain us is now at an all-time low and nobody even seems to care...
There is still good stuff. I find it's best to ignore almost anything that gets any attention.
Gamers clicking "pre order" like blind pigeons are the only one real problem about video game's industry. AAA devs know how spoiled people are so they don't care anymore. Simple.
Fortunately, some are still reliable, see Baldur's gate 3.
Music, cinema? same as ever, depends on what type of public you are. If you go searching good music by yourself you'll find treasures everywhere, same as cinema. But if you just swallow the mainstream bullshit, then you'll listen and watch shit. As simple as that.
All these industries fell under the control of the same rotten hand
NCSWIC. TheOrionLines 💉
Baldur’s Gate is fun
The Crowbcat video on this game is going to be legendary.
Hell yeah! Probably be a few months though, which is fine because he takes his time making masterpieces.
LOL, I was already looking for the Crowbcat video. I guess genius takes time, well in SOME cases it does! In other cases you get Starfield!
No Man's Sky is one of the most immersive games I've played and with over 300 hours put into the game I still find myself being pulled back into the vast universe.
Vast universe of weird looking planets and vistas
Idk but No mans sky planets and systems are unrealistic. Theyre way too small and cartoonish
Naaah. No man’s sky worlds are cartoonish.
I prefer Empyrion Galactic Survival for my space sim needs.
I've logged over 100 hrs in both games so I've really enjoyed them for what they are.
The visual style of NMS is simplified but I really appreciated the huge variety of distinctive, colorful biomes with tons of megafauna and megaflora diversity.
Starfields biomes look more realistic but they are also repetitive and somewhat bland in their design most of the time.
No planets that have adundant fields of bioluminescent fungi, no craggy mountainous volcanos, absolutely nothing underwater and a general lack of verticality in their biomes overall.
One can say, "thats not realistic" but here on Earth we have the amazing Redwood forest, Sahara desert, frozen tundra of Iceland, swamps and bogs of Louisiana, the Amazon rainforest, beaches with pink sand or black sand, the rocky clefts of Ireland, the Great Barrier Reef and tons of other biomes with distinct flora and fauna.
The diversity of Starfields biomes demonstrated in their entire galaxy doesn't come close to what is indeed real on our one planet.
The whole challenge is to balance both Science (the realistic and reasonable) with Fiction (wild imagination and creativity).
Starfield's environments lack the stunning variety of what is actually real yet tone down and dilute what could be imagined at the same time.
In some way it really is the worst of both approaches when it comes to environmental exploration.
Yet it has really fun looting, shooting, quests, random encounters, ship customization, which are all things NMS lacks.
They are two halves that, if put together would've probably been one of the greatest space games of all time.
@@vincer7824 Thanks for that great insight. That is unfortunately true. It is neat seeing a new type of alien, but usually it follows the same AI as all the others.
Most moons/dead planets are the same, which is fine cause that's realistic.
Sometimes you do find a place that does feel really unique.
But what bugs me is yea. The total lack of verticality. It would be cool to see more deep canyons or actual mountains. Things still feel remarkably flat a lot of the time though.
I knew way back when it was first known that BGS would still be using creation engine for Starfield (circa FO4 release) that this is what we would be getting.
I like how your first review was a raw first reaction and this review is a deeper thoughtful critique... will certainly Not Buying until its worth it.
Depends what you are looking to get from it i suppose. As of now it's not that bad. Sure expecting a NMS or Elite feel this is not that and will never be. But it is a type of Mass Effect Andromeda that's a bit more towards the NMS and Elite games. My gripe with it is about its core mechanics. Most perks are copy paste from Fallout 4 but the special sauce is missing. Where there you have VATS with specific perks and approaches and cool takedown/kill, those cut scene type animations tied to specific weapon types you are using. Starfield has none of that.
The core combat loop and character builds from Andromeda, focusing as solo or party cohesion with classes and their perks as well enhanced by use of jetpack and various personal shields and their abilities and whatever stats is miles away from Starfield. Which is way to shallow and even worse than Skyrim or Fallout.
Looks fine, works decent and overall doesn't seem that bad but still mediocre and a total disappointment. I really don't see any core system to be better than many other older games which we can compare it, let alone to even present something more that we could say it is advancing gaming and other games should emulate that part.
If anyone read the whole comment above me,then Starfield is just the game for you to enjoy.
Don't listen to these dum people giving a low ass score and not putting time into the game the amount of stuff to do is insane and cheering picking because of interest is dum I have 60hrs in and I'm having a blast
@@racoonchiefyea if you like losing screens 😂
So you won't buy a game which is free on game pass because someone else didn't like it. Even when many more do like it. Stop being a bloody sheep and make your own opinion.
The weird thing about video game critiques for me is how some people describe a game they like, contrast it to the game in question, point out the (obvious) differences, & then say that makes the game in question bad.
Imagine taking your new porsche back to the dealership you bought it from, dented to fuck, covered in mud, & asking for a refund because "it's not as good as my 4x4".
Let the people who make it tell you it's intended use & you will avoid the disappointment.
I've been consistently in awe as to how that studio continues to make use of GameBryo. You could see how this was becoming a problem with Fallout 3 and New Vegas, let alone Fallout 4 and 76. Sure, Creation Engine (AKA GameBryo) tools provide modders to achieve some incredible feats, and Bethesda games feature highly talented individuals which mod these games. However, having to say "I'll just wait until the community improves this so-called AAA game" is a poor excuse of anything.
People keep buying their games no matter what so why would their execs fund a new engine or really improve it. They should just pay the 5% to Epic for UE5 if that is really the problem. Only making convo, mate.
I've been in consistently awe as people thinking that the creation engine is the gamebryo engine. 🤦♂
@@Garycarlyle No. Every game being on UE5 is boring.
gamebryo should be actually by now gameadultguy-inhis-midthirties-with-a-career. but no. still gamebryo.
Its a crime they're still using it now, it was the least i expected them to finally change but they havent and this is the result
"You see that planet? You can land on it."
the lies are so shameless.
anyone that defends this game is ok with false advertisement.
Great comment, LOL😂❤
Lmao you can literally land on any spot on the planet and you can save up to 5 locations to return to that same spot if you want to. Haters will just hate .. game is amazing
@@Chambers36TheEnterI mean yes and no, but the fact remains you can land on any planet in the game 🤷♂️
@@bravexheart7 You are not landing on that planet but on an instance. A few square miles with invisible walls. Planets you see from space are just placeholders. Every building is an instance. Like all mini levels. It's 2023..
Tbh it being a looter shooter with a few rpg mechanics is what bethesda has been building to since skyrim. They have been streamlining and downplaying rpg elements since oblivion, but Skyrim is where it really started focusing on the trend of continuous drip feeding of improved leveled loot. Fallout 4 continued the trend and added a bad city builder.
I noticed that they have added a loading screen inside the elevators because I guess they couldn't fix the infinite elevator bug from Fallout 4.
Elevators in F04 were loading screens
elevators in real life are loading screens@@varmastiko2908
Cyberpunk devs is the only thing that did well... There is no loading screens in Elevators 😂😂
I was jetting around space and hyper jumping systems, a decade ago with and early access game called "Empyrion". Crazy how we are going in reverse.
Crazy to think that Elite was doing it on the BBC Micro in 1984. A handful of blokes made that.
Forty years later and a studio that employs thousands and has an astronomical budget can't even grasp the basics of flying a spaceship about.
It isn't like we had Freelancer, the X series, Independence War, Tachyon, and countless others in the meantime.
And of course the god of space combat games, Freespace. That was a linear experience but the battles in that are still amazing today. There is scale, excitement, impact, and spectacle.
Great game!
Bethesda worked with Nasa on the physics and environments but the guys back in 84 were probably more correct.. 🤪🤪🤪
@@dusermiginte4647 You're a sucker for Todd's marketing schtick aren't you?
Do you also believe that all of the events in Cocaine Bear are true because it says "based on true events" at the start?
"Frontier: First Encounters in 1995 introduced Newtonian physics, realistic star systems and seamless freeform planetary landings."
How about 1995?
The idea that only Bethesda can get physics right because they 'consulted' with NASA is laughable.
@@Pintheshadows only Bethesda did..
Maybe you believe all planets is neon line in nms buy no.. sry to disappoint you...
How can anyone like Skyrim over this game? Nostalgia glasses in full effect. Starfield is a great sandbox, probably the best in Bethesda's catalogue and even has more RPG elements than any game they made since Oblivion.
This game is the first game marketed as a space game that’s not a space game and getting good reviews for not being what it’s been marketed as.
Exactly, its scifi Fallout shooter with difficulty being bullet sponginess
It is a space game… are you slow? There literally like a thousand planets and space travel and all of that and you’re telling me it’s not a space game. That’s pretty silly. It’s literally marketed as a space game and is called Starfield. Oh! And it has space suits. I wonder what those are for. Maybe space? Nah it’s just cosplay I guess. Of course it’s a space game.
Starfield has space loading, not space 'travel'.@@gabecollins5585
@@gabecollins5585 A space game where around 1% of playtime is taken in space. You dont fly in space nor explore it, you cant even travel around a system without a menu and a loading screen, its just a place for you to get a survey promt in the map menu and where you get spawned when you try to travel to a new star system. Otherwise you completely skip it via fast travel. Other 40% percent is taken by running around the 3 cities. around 10% is watching loading screens while teleporting all over the place. The rest is taken by running around the prefabs and planet surface without a vehicle, which is a shame since you cant even use your ship to relocate on the map like a kilometer or 2. The ship is just a mobile base and a cargo container when you dont actively seek ship combat. No, teleporting between POIs without even need to board you ship is not traveling nor is watching loading screens when jumping between planets (just playzone instances with different backdrops, planets are not even objects afaik). There is simply no sense of space and distance nor continuity of said space, only teleporting between locations and that leads to no immersion. I mean you dont even need to refuel, fuel capacity is just a matter of convenience, what a space game this is.
Take a shot each time i typed "space".
This is indeed a Fallout game without stats but with a pocket base that is always with you (which is nice).
Comment above was written by someone who never heard of Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen or forgot an /s at the end.
@@gabecollins5585 Starfield is a FPS/RPG in a Space Setting (fast-travel renders the ship pointless) compared to contemporary titles that are FPS/RPG/Space Simulations where all aspects of spaceflight is manual gameplay. In Starfield, the space experience is composed of menus, cut screens & load screens that are not disguised which breaks immersion and though ship customization is generally praised the actual space-ship gameplay is arguably the weakest aspect of the game. Starfield has design limitations that go back decades being sold for $70-100 (and it is bugged and has performance issues)
I thought load screens were a thing of the past. I remember that being the challenge back in the 90s.
Thats because they are using an engine from the 90s :D
Loading screens have been in gaming forever my guy not even a argument literally 5 seconds loading screens is not gonna kill you
@@andrecassella6522 We are paying for this game and most of us don't want loading screens as much as is in this game. Its like they are obssed with them. Its not even like most of the areas are that big they can't be preloaded into memory in advance. Just load the one people are entering and the one after. Its not hard.
@@andrecassella6522 imagine if my generation had that attitude. You would never have GTA5. Most games hide loading with crafty narrow corridors etc to make the game seamless. You shouldn't work in the industry if you think a few seconds of loading is fine. Complacency mate. It's the enemy of invention.
Sure glad I went with the N64 back then instead of PS1.
Unbelievable in 2023.
Sadly, the fact that so many things can take ages in Starfield is down to the subscription model of play (Xbox / PC gamepass). The longer it takes to play the game the more monthly subscriptions Microsoft gets. So, the developers have fill the game with loads of boring planets and there's no transport when you're on a planet, etc. On top of this, the whole thing feels like something from 10 years ago. What a disappointment.
I'm not a huge fan of No Man's Sky, but dammit, they know how to do space travel right
Yeah but it's the same thing over and over after a few hours
Thats all it has going for it... No Mans sky feels empty
Elite Dangerous is where it's at for 'realistic' space travel, the problem is that space travel is pretty boring.
Elite dangerous sucks, sry. Its the definition of exploration just for the sake of exploration (except you only find empty space).
@Centrioless and thats the whole thing. Each of those games does one thing great but fails at everything else. No game will ever do everything perfect and will please everyone. Either it chooses what it wants to be or loses itself in trying to be everything.
Creation Engine does support animations on loading screens. I'm still surprised they didn't add some "warp" animation load screens for the planets.
mass effect did it 10 years ago
It did on Skyrim but I'm willing to consider it suddenly doesn't for real as Bethesda have become so bad as developers. Remembering some of their best guys left to make other games like The Outer Worlds and they were not replaced.
@@amd1055tify ME came out in 2007. 16y ago.
It's literally in the game it's just rarely used LOL.
do you happen to know when development on Starfield started?
4:33 You know what makes it worse? Bethesda, a massive studio, still outsourced Starfield to about 27 3rd-party studios, with half of them being basically developer sweatshops.
people need to stop thinking these game companies are the saviors of the universe.
Even more so with the shills that hype this trash up. Same usual suspects hyping a new trash game every few weeks.
Noone is saying that. They are just expected to make good games with the millions of dollars they are budgeted with.
But they'd rather spend it on diversity hires and safe spaces.
*Hardcore Bethesda fans have entered that chat*
Maybe because "a" company was the reason their games thrived for so long, definitely not because of modders
People need to stop having expectations and enjoy the trash that is handed to them for the highest price possible? Allright my man.
There are some really good game companies and their work shows it. Bethesda just finds new ways to come up short, its like they don't even care.
When they mentioned the amount of planets, we all expected to have actual space travel, not menus and loading screens.
Although i agree. I see why they did it. Most likely the old engine. Creating space that can be traversed without loading screen is isn't simple. Wich is why almost no space game does it. even if it was possible. How many people would actually just sit there flying from one place to another every time. People would end up complaining about the game being a flying simulator. Especially longer routes. Although they could at least have made the loading screens interesting.
@@direct2397nah, they could've made space travel interesting and fixed their garbage engine to allow better gameplay
then people would instead be complaining that it takes several minutes to get anywhere. They already complain about 2 second loading screens. There's no way actual flight from one place to another could feel "real" without taking too long.
There are games made by a very small team with a very small budget that have mastered seamless space to planet travel. Try Empyrion Galactic Survival. Still one of the best Space simulator survival games with quests and RPG elements out there IMO. It works soooo well. Bethesda could've easily created a seamless experience for us. It's so disappointing.
Maybe you should brace the cutscenes and engage in the gameplay, instead of treating the game like borderlands... False information about the game imo.
Does everyone forget that skyrim released on the 360 decade or so ago, and ran like shit? Did everyone forget about backwards flying dragons?
That's just it, isn't it? But they will never give up the gamebryo/creation engine. Because it's what they have accustomed their team to. So long as they make enough money to please their shareholders, they will continue to fall 20 years behind other AAA studios.
It's funny when you say "their team" cus they have outsourced work to 27 different studios according to the end credits. And also, I bet most of their team are newer folks.
They will please the shareholders, or Microsoft will close the studio and sell the IPs lol
@@annilator3000 Well the work they outsource is mostly modeling and stuff that they import into the engine.
As long as the masses buy their games, they have little reason to invest into something new. Then once the crowd stops buying their crap, they can shake their pockets, and invest 10% of the massive profits and stamp out a new engine, and market something new, and restart the cycle
Have you seen other AAA games lately? Most are laughable, save maybe Elden Ring.
I mean bethedsda struggles to implement ladders so I kind of expected this
....and vehicles.
Never forget the Metro hat.
I knew it would be like this. I can confidently say that my habit of impulsively buying video games is completely broken, thanks to you, Mac. RIP Starfield.
Never buy Anything on a whim or impulse, you will regret most of them.
You could've seen this coming a mile away!!! They're awful and didn't have any good IPs to knock off. Just a bunch of other garbage. They compiled garbage and got garbage!
Very curious to hear from you as to how this game is any less of an RPG than Skyrim or any other bethesda titles. I made a list criticizing the "criticisms" from your "review". Im just gonna paste it here again(probably took me more effort in copy pasting the text than it did you reviewing Starfield):
> Bethesda has had loading screens for every single city, dungeon, hell even every single building, even some rooms inside those buildings, atleast since the time of Skyrim. They haven't had a "seamless" world for a long time now. How is it that those aren't "boxes" but this is?
> Train seems to work no different than Travelling Carts of Skyrim. Those carts also used to stand idle outside every city for you to take and travel between points, and simply gave a loading screen if we took them.
> Again, how is fast travel in other Bethesda titles immersive, but not in this? You can choose/not choose to fast travel in every bethesda game, including this one, making the game as "immersive" or as convenient as you want.
> How is the AI any worse than any of the previous bethesda titles?
> They chose the perk system for this game, but that is a huge part of what enables roleplaying in this game. Ofcourse you can't just pick anything and everything and have to work your way to get better cooler stuff. Funny how you declared that its just a looter shooter and not an RPG, when you literally ignored the entire perk system that grants abilities based on ur preferred choice for character. Whining abt how you cant steamroll through the entire game without giving any thought to your character, build, and the roleplaying systems. There are multiple ways to go about things in this game, even stuff that you showed, with the door requiring lockpick, it can be done without lockpick, which you would know this if you actually engaged with the game.
As for that "immersion" that bethesda is known for, it comes from the organic storytelling, where you create your own story/adventure in these worlds through a whole variety of out-of-the-script emergent events, activities, interactions etc., stuff that just happens to you as a player/character, that feels unique and organic.
That core is still very much present here in Starfield as well, so I don't really understand what you are talking about. If you don't like it you don't like it, but atleast engage with the game before reviewing it.
except for i could walk everywhere in skyrim/fallout without the need of fast travel while this game (apart from system to system jump obviously ans maybe planet landing which i can accept) doesnt even give me the freedom to fly from planet to planet i littarly had 3 big ass settlement in fallout 4 in a radius which would be a little bit larger than New atlantis whichi could travel without loading screens...separating some areas in its own box via loading screen can be good because of memory's usage and stuff but holy hell
@@paniky6006 No you couldn't walk everywhere, the game required a loading screen for every single major location and even minor ones like dungeons/stations etc. "Planet to planet" is not the same thing as walking 1 km on land without a loading screen lmao.
The handcrafted cities and random planet maps in Starfield are huge in size, proportionate to entire maps of their previous games and even bigger than them. You can build multiple of those settlements across each of these large maps and can walk to and fro without any loading screen/fast travel.
Starfield by any metric is far more open and bigger than any of their previous titles.
Bethesda thought everyone wanted a Fallout 4 Space Mod.
Have you actually played the game? I mean this kind of sheep to me.
He hasn’t played so why is this guy sucking up to worth a buy
Guess it's back to waiting on Starcitizen. Unfortunately by the time it comes out we'll be in our real spaceships.
@@billgoad its supossed to be the largest bethesda game but in reality it ends up being a lot of small connected places without vechicles the planets are stupidly big the cities especially new atlantis feels empty just look at the well in new atlantis the ppl there act exactly the same as the ppl in the normal residential area starfield needed atleast another year
@@KruglugBadax I did, played 20 hours before i refunded and yes that is my impression too. Is Fallout 4 in space. Many perks do same thing as in Fallout, the combat is similar regardless of your supposedly build choice. There are no builds same as in Fallout but where there you have VATS and certain perks along with that and you can focus on them to get a somewhat different gameplay feel, as well as gear or the kill animations that creates a mirage which gives the immersion of a different combat style, Starfield is void of those.
So at the core is the same, with all the bad parts too while the good parts are missing. Imagine the combat is pretty much no VATS, guns, power armor with jetpack mod without abilities such as throwing your power core as a nuclear grenade or when airborne stumping on enemies to damage them. But you can take a jetpack perk in the top of the tree at max level where you slow time while airborne and aiming down the sight...
I mean, you have boxing perk that increased punch damage while your punch swing movement is the same all the time, no dodges, lunges, parries, rolls, kicks, grapples and whatnot. You can parry which makes you move like a snail. Is the same as FO4 but there are no fist weapons. So pretty much you can't favorite your punches so when you want to cycle through ranged weapons and fists you must stop your action, go in inventory and unequip weapon. Like they put some idea towards hand to hand but then completely ignored that part to refine it in a way that has sense for gameplay.
Your point is valid, but I think people seem to forget there are big differences with no mans sky and elite
Elite from the last time I played there were no npc to have conversations with no points of interest no built up planets with the ability to explore settlement you pretty much dock in a station and use a bulletin board.
No mans sky is so procedural that everything looks same after about 10 planets again quests weren't as fleshed out not to mention they had auto landing and take off.
Starfield have tried to flesh some of these quests and planets out way better than elite and no man sky have but its come at a cost.
Your asking for an elite game with more planet exploration, more interaction, more animation, more detailed settlements and the gun play and RPG elements. Which even Elite itself doesn't deliver and Frontier themselves probably couldn't deliver. I mean star citizen is still not released most likely because the scope of such a game is far too hard to deliver.
I would say the scope of that kind of game would probably take so much cash and resources that its just not feasible and it going as sim as Elite, it is just going to push it into more of a niche market, again making it not worth the cost.
Not going to lie I personally love a game like that but your average gamer isn't going to enjoy it.
^^Hey fam, you won!!
"And so Hello Games decided to make something big and weird and ambitious that could still work within its small studio structure. For much of No Man's Sky's development, the team was just six people, expanding to 15 by the time it shipped. Still, it was a tiny team considering the buzz around that game"
REAL SPACE FLIGHT.
Literally nobody cared about this game before starfield came out. There is a reason it was a dud.
@Austin2Sexy Now, NMS is getting more recognition. Goes to show that starfield is going to turn out semi disappointing. Couldn't get the basics of space themed games right. Bethesda sure is pathetic... 🙄
Plus NMS actually received substantial free updates. Something Bethesda is most likely not looking forward to doing
@@__-gf3znAfterall, why would they ever put in the effort of making updates for the game when they have modders doing that job for them for free?
@@cynicalmemester1694 Yet the modding scene for new vegas looks better than fallout 4...
I wonder why that even is the case in the first place. Fallout 4 mods don't even have cars unlike NV which is even more unfortunate...
SEVEN YEARS AGO
We went a whole generation (and likely 2) of consoles without an Elder Scrolls game for this. Not a terrible game but the sheer expectation for this that was built by the constant hype generated by Bethesda means, if we got what was promised, that this should have been a masterpiece.
That was my same thought since i first heard about starfield, they made 2 fallout games, why was elderscrolls not next, then starfield after that, it would have been better for starfield cause with more years comes better tech, would be cheaper to achieve seamless space and planet travel.
"the constant hype generated by Bethesda" - Just over a week ago everyone was sh*tting the bed about the LACK of news coming from Bethesda... so... which is it?
But we got 76 as well, a fantastic generation-defining game xD xD xD hahahaha. Bring on TES6!!
@sashimi_sensei it was the constant hype. They have been advertising this game since 2018. We all knew it was coming. Todd Howard was regularly talking about it, there were developers and designers talking about, there was teasers, gameplay trailers, hands on experiences for multiple game-cons, software companies announcing exclusive partnerships, Bethesda pausing 2 of the biggest game franchises to work on this.
Everyone was working themselves up for 'Skyrim in Space' (said by Howard). The link with Skyrim on of the most loved and successful action RPGs of all time got everyone excited
No idea what you mean about lack of news a week ago. Reviewers already had their hands on the game, we knew it was about to drop.
@@sashimi_sensei Plus I said generated by Bethesda as in they started it. Create a bit of buzz for Starfield, link it to Skyrim and suddenly millions of people around the world were intrigued and they hype train took off. There was near daily speculation on the game from all corners of the internet, thousands of videos from content creators and games channels, game journalists and online articles etc.
Don't know why you have hit me with your 'Ackchyually' attitude as if people worries a week ago, only noticed by you it seems, undid half a decade of excitement and hype.
This game was one of the most hyped games of all time. This wasn't a FIFA or CoD that seems to have a new game every year it was a one off, years in the making and millions were excited to get their hands on. And ultimately it didn't live up to the hype and was a disappointment.
King, your reviews are the best on the YT these days. Thx for the ride.
It looks like Todd as just re-hashed the old engine from skyrim, changed the location to space and then spread the game out over a bigger area.
...took a laser to the knee
It doesn't actually feel that much bigger if you view each planet as a village. There's more to do in and around some of the villages (not even towns) in vanilla Skyrim than on a planet in SF.
no no no, he just took FO4 and added a bunch of smaller maps instead of a big one.
No, he just added an instance with a background with stars, some balls with planets textures, some asteroids and called it a space RPG!
This game runs in the same engine that bethesda has been using since The Elder Scrolls Redguard. That game came out in 1998. Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, New Vegas, Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Fallout 76 are all running on the same engine that they just rehash every 5 years or there by. It looks similar because it basically is the same engine.
Honestly even an Age old Game like Space Engineers has you immersed by walking on and off your ship. Manually landing and such
Going over 1500+ hours in, SE never grows old.
So true and improving the game is updated with the thoughts of the gamers
I enjoyed (occasionally hated) SE, but having the game go 1.0 while still cripplingly broken, with the devs dividing the workshop into DLC have and have nots, not fixing longstanding issues, and generally just being a bit scummy, it really soured me to it.
You were so limited on creativity by the engine, and I had hundreds of hours wasted by bugs, issues and poor performance. I even spent some time co-managing a server for some friends, hand crafting scenarios for them. It was a nightmare, with a conclusion where the game deleted everything, and wouldn't accept backups.
Personally, my money's on a game called "Starship Evo". It wasn't coded by a box of monkeys. You can actually create detailed, intricate, humongous ships with moving parts, small blocks, and have it run well in a multiplayer server. I would miss some of the features SE had. While it's a broken mess, it really has a lot going for it with the features and how it feels. Biggest gaming disappointment for me really.
“Age old” it’s a new game!
@@HeiseSaysIt has been in Early Access for at least 5 years and probably closer to 10 years.
Starfield reviews have been a good way to root out reviewers I shouldn't bother following
*cough* Act Man *cough* ACG *cough*
@@Disconnis other way around imo, this guy, Luke Stephens and Moist
Should we be worried about the next elder scrolls?
Haha yes, its going to be TERRIBLE
Definitely mate...
Well personally I'm not woried at all, because I already fully expect that Bethesda won't produce anything that I'd actually want.
I simply don't care anymore.
Starfield really makes you appreciate just how far No Man's Sky has come and what it's become.
I was playing NMS for the past week or so to get myself in the mood for starfield.. Think I'll just remain here now...
No mans sky really does show how far the bar has been raised in shitty shallow space games.
@@fenrifegads5571 even nms has it's downsides. Sometimes it makes me want to play EVE online again. But I really shouldn't do that to myself lol...
NMS is barely a game though 🤷♂️ it’s just a “fun with friends” sandbox thing.
I respect how they fixed NMS, but even with the updates, I could never get into it. I try every two years or so, I always get very excited for 10 hours but then the experience just gets so samey. Ton of grinding, running over uninteresting procedurally generated planets with buildings and landmarks uniformly scattered, landing on what it essentially one space station with slightly different layout... I guess the game just isn't for me. I'm a sucker for games like Outer Wilds where everything is hand crafted.
Coming into a planet/leaving one was my best moment of No Mans Sky. Felt so special
Really? I always felt it was herky jerky roblox level nonsense. You can't see the stuff on the ground until you're feet from the surface and there is nothing on any planet worth exploring. NMS is just a glorified inventory management simulator where the only point to the game is to progress the color of items you've got and get more space to store them in. The locations can all be fully explored in seconds and most only give you some items. The combat is roblox status. I've never come close to dying in NMS even on max level alert on ground and space.
If you want a fully explorable planet play Star Citizen. It's only cost them 600 million dollars to make it happen and sadly they're full of the same site over and over again with nothing to actually do. 10 years and the planets are barely there. That is what Mac expects Bethesda to shove into an action rpg.
@@ValosarX This!
This seamless planet approach is nice to have, but it quickly gets boring and repetitive. I would like SF having it, but really its importance is extremely exaggerated. Whoever played seriously ED or MNS for more than couple of hours must agree. Especially when you land the same planet and POI over and over again.
NMS is very simple game. Patterns are everywhere, very strange color palette. Weird, non-detailed ships, atrocious space station designs.
Very unrealistic, unbelievable.
I would rather have the cut-scene to land, than only one option to land the exact same site 100 times and waste my hour of life to hold the mouse and W.
@@AlesStibal My thoughts exactly, people have diferent tastes and priorities but I think some are focusing too much on nice to have technical details and forgetting what the core gameplay is. Played a lot of NMS and ED, haven't touched ED in years and after playing NMS for a while, despite being well built and somewhat entertaining I always ask myself "what is the point of doing this?" Done it all before...
It was so boring after the 20th time Bethesdas version is better the problem is the stuff on the actual planet extremely boring and repetitive the same 3 mining places to find and the exact same caves
Ah yes, No Mans sky, borned from blatant lies and what they made is just a toy version of a space sim. The planets are small, the ships are arcade, the colors are bright like it is a birthday of an 8 years old.
You know what is a truly immersive RPG? Baldur's Gate 3.
It absolutely makes me feel immersed into 4 different personalities in the same way multiple personality disorder does.
Fallout 4 reskin they use the same assets and user interface
KOTOR didn't have seamless planet exploration neither. Nor Mass Effect.I remember how exploration in Mass Effect 2 was so bad compared to Mass Effect 1, that I didn't even bother to play Mass Effect 3 (even though I owned the game). And yet, nobody citicizes this aspect in those games nowadays. For me it's simple - do you want seamless exploration of not-so interesting and endlessly repeatable planets and with pointless quests? Go play NMS. Do you want to play RPG set in space with very unique and meaningful lore and aesthetics and gameplay which contains planet exploration even though it is not that seamless? Play Starfield.
What a honest review Mack. You just saved me some money I think. Going to see some other reviews.
Thankfully i have xbox, so its going to be free lol
It's not a bad game, but it's definitely not as good as the fanatics would have you believe, it's a very very slow burn game that doesn't start feeling good to play until you're around level 25.
Yea I will have to see when it comes out on steam to see some raw reviews
@@SekiberiusWelkeshan immersive rpg that only gets good at a minimum level is definitely not good though
@@LizardMammaryGlands I agree, especially considering level 25 took me about 30 hours to get to.
Another (bigger) you tuber called fast travelling from anywhere as a 'god tier' feature - some people are creatively corrupt.
Who was that
@@youtubeaccount2429 GmanLives
I think Starfield could have learned a TON from No Mans Sky. No Mans Sky is so seamless in its transitions from planet to planet.
Funny thing is Hello Games learned a lot from Bethesda about lying.
Well in a way it took the no man's sky devs years to make it what it is today when it launched it was a disappointment. They did end up making it right but it wasn't on launch. Bethesda thou never seems to fix the big issues even fallout 4 on console is still pretty broken sadly you can't get mods like on pc to fix it.
I had low expectations and still got disappointed, my faith in this industry is almost zero at this point.
The game is not bad as theses people are saying taking way up higher thinking it was going be this when realizing it isn't
@@andrecassella6522 🤔 What?
The cool thing about Starfield is that now I know which reviewers should not be trusted.
Thank you Starfield, for exposing the shills.
Gen Z with the instant win and the absolutely no challenge requirement is the target audience for more and more AAA games.
I bet they play this shit while watching tiktoks lol
And those same idiots complain that Baldur’s Gate 3 is too hard
And the boomers with the rose tinted nostalgia glasses and misinformed opinions
Razorfist said it best on twitter.
"Bethesda - a game studio that doesn't even ask for your character class anymore - is now asking for your pronouns."
You can't make this shit up.
Frankly we can't expect a good game from devs that do the rainbow fascism. It tells everything relevant about their judgement.
@@varmastiko2908fascist, Marxist, communist, Bolshevik all the same to me, either way bethesda's taking the ESG money and focused more on pronouns then they did on role playing.
@@nathanlehto8780Exactly this.
I spent 30 pounds to walk around slowly in a space suit so I don’t die from co2, whilst some little kid in pyjamas runs around a city no problem
Lol.
30 pounds? I thought this game was like 50 quid minimum or so
@@MaesterfulIf you have game pass, you could buy just the special edition upgrade to get it a week early for about £30.
can't you take off the suit? instead of running around like a weirdo
@@dutube99 Ya you can take it off so long as you're on a planet with oxygen and the conditions aren't extreme (like really hot or cold or radioactive etc). So in the main cities, you totally can take it off and just wear normal clothes. The commenter here is upset that he can't sprint infinitely, if you sprint for too long your O2 drops to 0 and CO2 starts to build up and then you lose health. The running speed is fine and doesn't deplete O2. There definitely should be vehicles in this, like some kinda hovercraft.
Are they just completely unable to make vehicles in this engine?
For a game like this you need both ground and space vehicles.
They were unable in Fallout 4, in Fallout 76. The maximum you can get, is horses in skyrim and before lol.
Yea it's just sad at this point.
If they made vehicles for this you'd hit the boundary wall too quickly. So no vehicles
@@amoeba8888 That's dope. New Vegas is the best. Might check that out. Been playing older games lately.
@@Spodikus How the F is Bethesda in 2023 still making games like its 2008? At this point they are behind other major studios in engine tech by more than a DECADE. Skyrim, which was kinda behind at the time was 13 YEARS ago.
@@amoeba8888because its registered as an animal most likely a horse just with a skin on top pretty clever even the own devs who work with full engine couldn’t figure it out
The whole entering a new planet and exploration in NMS, especially in VR, is a very special thing. Great perspective thankyou.
you should do a re-review of No Many Sky. Probably a great time to do it!
It's pretty popular now, he'll hate it.
Especially since they've had 3-4 major updates since he last re-reviewed it.
@@djlovesyou8302 He likes some popular games if they are good and we are arranging playing it multiplayer on Discord.
this whole starfield launch made me finally try out skyrim and get immersed in it (i only played a few hours of it before) - i raised the difficulty, turned on the survival mode and my god the immersion in that game is amazing. plus the survival mode forbids fast travel so it made me really feel like tha part of that world. i finally got into it
Nice😊👌
Depending on how high you set that difficulty though... On highest difficulty, things have so much health bloat, the only viable playstyle ends up being stealth archery for big crits. Well, maybe not only viable... but the combat does turn into a slog
If you really want to enjoy rpg and don't mind graphics try Morrowind or even daggerfall unity.
@@kwando472 yeah, i actually played a lot of morrowind in my childhood. and a bit of oblivion. its just that for some reason i had some biased apprehension about skyrim from what i heard from other people (due to its leveling adjustment, where the enemies adjust to your level so no matter if you are lvl1 or lvl70 the bandits will pose a similar challenge, at least thats what i heard i dont know the nitty gritty of the details, maybe i am wrong)
@Darqion yeah magic sucks on high difficulty without mods and overhauls
Starfield is a sandbox game and not an open world rpg with an old game engine. They never promised gameplay like no mans sky or elite dangerous which are both open world. Being able to do these things in starfield would get very old very quick and you would fast travel everywhere anyways after a few hours.
Also lets not forget that modding is gonna absolutely change the game over time and bethesda acknowledged that before launch.
This review is an opinion and just that. Some people enjoying this game and plenty of reviews that are positive because they take a different approach to the game.
"This review is an opinion and just that."
Well, yeah, and so are the positive reviews as well. Just opinions. Their value isn't any greater. This opinion is as valuable as the positive reviews, and it should be noted that this particular opinion does make some good points that cannot be discounted.
I do find this interesting that a AAA game developer that has worked on a game for years, or the people who support said developer, are relying on "modding" to change the game, insinuating that the game will be made better. Shouldn't the game already be better? Shouldn't the game be able to live up to the self-created overhype put out be Bethesda, especially at the retail prices that they were charging? Why should people who dislike the game be told, "Well, you gotta wait for the modding"?
Modding will not erase the contradiction of ship-building either. I mean, you can customize your ship in many ways, but in the end, all it will be used for is standard combat and as a storage unit. Even traveling is negated by the fast travel option. So even though aesthetically pleasing for a few minutes, ship-customization becomes pointless. As you even point out, "you would fast travel everywhere anyways after a few hours" (which is happening now....many don't even bother with flying unless they have to). As one player stated:
""I never felt excitement or awe, no goosebumps as my engines fired, no sense of grandeur as I set down on a new world. That's because despite cruising from one end of the galaxy to the other in Starfield, I never felt like I was really going anywhere."
Comparing Starfield to NMS, ED, or SC, and Bethesda's input on the subject, is another debate for another time. Having said that, it is safe to say that for many in the playerbase, Starfield did not live up to its overhyped press. The game was supposed to set a new standard in gaming, and unfortunately all Bethesda did was remake FO4 with a Milky Way dressing. For some, having another version of FO4 is fine. It's was the game that they enjoyed. But the reality is that this game isn't ground-breaking. It is a cookie-cutter version of all their other games. The negative reviews cannot be discounted. Again, their value is as high (or low) as any of the positive reviews.
Frankly, this game will be on sale at 75% off retail price in 6 months, whether people think its a good game or a bland rehash of the usual Bethesda game.
Things like fast travel/teleportation REALLY kill immersion. I truly discovered this for the first time after playing Fallout 4's survival difficulty/mode. Man that was a breath of fresh air and created some of the best, most memorable gaming moments of my life(of course mixed with the difficulty/danger as well).
That's some fuxking bullshit. Survival was fun yea. But WHY do you need to forced not to use fast travel? In skyrim, oblivion, fallout 3, ect you DIDN'T need to fast travel, but the option was there. This game doesn't exactly give you the choice
@@absolutelyfookinnobody2843 No fast travel forces you to get immersed in the world. In Fallout 4 it works well also because of the rapid changes in weather but more importantly random events/enemy spawns. The world feels more 'alive' and you will generally encounter all sorts of things(not to mention a LOT of danger).
I remember one unforgettable experience.. I had none of my own settlements yet(except the starting one in the top left of the map) and had to go to the bottom left of the map. Getting there was interesting(exploring a lot on the way), but getting back even more so. I was overencumbered with destroyed power armour, dying of exhaustion, hunger, thirst, wounds, sickness - you name it, but I made it in the end. On top of that I was very low on many items(including for healing). Was an unforgettable journey. There's something special about playing the game like that, especially as some enemies can just end you in one hit - and having a completely non-combat build on top of that(put points into a lot of other stuff including computers and lockpicking to not have to skip content/loot).
Out of thousands of games, the way survival mode was done remains one of the best experiences I've had.
RDR2 was another great example of this, i preferred to not fast travel as you could get so much out of just travelling from point A to B, all the random encounters, secrets, weather changes to enjoy etc
@@Tyler-hs9eu Yeah I got that vibe from it, still need to play.
Fallout 4 survival mode is quality
It's weird. I've put 20 hours into Starfield and am really enjoying it. Yet I'm watching this and your previous review and agreed with most of your gripes.
Yeah, had the same with Fallout 4. Enjoyed playing it and had fun for the first few hours. Then the dopamine wore off and piece by piece the front crumbled. The same with Skyrim, but at different points. I hate the wasted potential the most, simple additions could have brought so much more value to the players.
Honeymoon period.
It seems the main problem with him is: He don't like shooters. I love Cyberpunk 2077 and abandoned FO3 and 4 for being not good enough at it, so I probably might be happy with Starfield, but first wait for the GamePass-version because of him. I hope there are enough assists to play it properly with a gamepad.
Yup, I am enjoying it too very much and don't really understand the hate. I love it. Having a ball here.
@@Thulsardoom no one asked or cares. Carry on
The Bethesda we grew up with died some time ago, those days are over with!
Saw there is a 2 two-week free Star Citizen pass. Played it today for the first time after being highly skeptical but I'm already enjoying flying around more than the 2 days i spent in Starfield.
But SC will never release.
@@Lenardius doesn't matter. Had more fun flying around and doing missions
I only just thought about it but it's actually crazy that there aren't any alien races you can play as. Bethesda touting this as their first new universe in 25 years and coming from the company that made the Elder Scrolls series where you can play 10 different races all with detailed history and lore surrounding them seems a bit of a cop out tbh, I dunno tho maybe aliens are coming in DLC 😅
the delusions some people have to think starfield could've win game of the year of over TOK or let alone BG3 which is said to be one of the best games ever made, what a joke of a game, 8 years in development for a crappy fallout in space with 1000 planets? more like 10000 loading screens.
Bethesda been dead since 76 if not after skyrim
Dude you summed up my feelings PERFECTLY. I completely 100% agree with everything you said. Ive been saying to my friends that 10 well done planets would be fucking amazing but people want the same planets spread over 300 or something stats and then everything loses quality
I suspect the engine is the resson why they've compromised on so many features. Its simply outdated and not fit for purpose.
True this game is wide as a lake and deep as a puddle.
You are disrespecting a random puddle my friend 😅
Imagine trying to add a third universe to stand next to Fallout and Elder Scrolls... then proceeding to shit out this bland mess. Bethesda is dead, don't look forward to anything coming from them in the future.